by Tasha Black
He was going to kill her, that much was certain.
But was he?
He had promised not to harm her, which was absolute nonsense. He didn’t know how to do anything but hurt. He’d hurt the string of strangers who let him into their beds, he’d hurt his own family, he’d hurt himself.
There was no reason this creamy innocent would be immune to William’s special brand of attention - not with those limpid eyes and throbbing heart, and the fertile fragrance between her legs. She was so wet through and through, he imagined she would pop like a water balloon if he so much as scraped her with an errant canine.
And the way she smelled…
He wanted to drink her blood in buckets, pierce her and lick the waterfall of her off his fingers like chocolate from a fountain.
The warmth of her dark-eyed gaze beckoned him and when he met her eyes the other desire pounded through him, his cock hard as steel.
Yet there was something else too, something of home.
She had brought him home. At least, she seemed to have brought him home. At first, he had been convinced that he was only imagining the house as it once had been, because he was delirious with hunger. But he knew that wasn’t the case. Somehow, this girl had brought them both back to a better time for Ogden House.
And that, at least, piqued his curiosity - more so than anything else had done in decades.
Was it enough to keep her alive?
He’d worry about that after.
William kept his eyes on hers as he lowered his face to her fragrant heat.
She watched him, her lips parted, but she made no move to stop him. She seemed to be almost swooning with desire.
He was pleased to see that she hadn’t removed all traces of hair from herself as so many women these days seemed to do. The fringe of curls gave her an appearance of innocence. He parted her with a long finger, causing her to make a helpless sound.
Excited beyond words, William buried his face. She cried out as he licked and sucked her folds wildly.
Her delicious warmth soaked into him, making him feel almost human again. Every drop of her musky scent, sticky on his mouth and cheeks, each degree of warmth pulsing onto his tongue brought him a millimeter closer to the heated redolence of his long lost mortality.
Relishing the contact, he tortured her for long minutes, stroking and lashing her opening with his mouth, but ignoring the tiny throbbing pyramid that swelled above.
She began to moan and angle her hips, as if to beg him for what she needed.
He ignored her, pinning her hips down to the bed with one arm, and continued teasing and tormenting the poor girl.
She was a beautiful sight to behold, pulsating pink sex, creamy thighs, eyes closed, long lashes kissing her reddened cheeks as her hands clenched the bedding.
His poor cock raged to be inside her. He pressed himself against the bed and gritted his teeth against the pleasure.
He would slide a finger inside her, test the heat that would soon envelop him.
Oh, she was tight, very tight. Her cries ceased as he pressed his finger inside. She held her breath in anticipation.
She whimpered just as he discovered her secret.
Her intact hymen.
God help him, she was a virgin.
He felt a pang, knowing she was untouched.
William held very still, pleading with himself not to lose control.
When she whimpered and he felt her tighten on his finger he thought he would go mad with need.
But instead, he held his finger still inside her and began to slowly lick her again.
She jogged her hips up to him helplessly and he relented at last, dragging his tongue along her swollen flesh until he reached her clitoris.
Moving as slowly as he could bear, he traced circles around it with his tongue until her desperate moans nearly broke his heart.
Then he lashed the little nodule with his tongue, once, twice, three times.
When he wrapped his lips around it and sucked lightly, he felt her whole body go stiff beneath him.
She cried out frantically and he felt her flood with warm moisture as she crushed his finger in spasms of pleasure.
Wracked with emotion, William rested his head on her thigh while the tremors of her climax dissipated.
A thousand feelings, long forgotten, shot through him.
He was annihilated with the need to protect her, to love her.
But he couldn’t love her, he was incapable of love after all these years of debauchery. And he couldn’t protect her, he could hardly keep from killing her himself.
None of that knowledge mattered, not even the fact that he knew next to nothing about the girl. Deep in William’s chest, the place where his heart had once beat filled with happy wonder.
5
Adia awoke to the sound of the train. Normally the Tarker’s Hollow Episcopal Church bells woke her at 7 AM on Sundays, not the 9 AM commuter rail.
She must have been tired enough to sleep through the bells.
Her whole body ached. It was almost as if…
Adia’s eyes flew open.
She was looking up at a plaster ceiling in such poor condition that at first she would have believed it was a modern art rendition of an angel wing.
Everything slammed back into her consciousness.
Everything.
The man, the house, the epic make-out session.
Impossible. It was all impossible. She must have hit her head when she came back in here to get her phone.
But then what was she doing upstairs?
Adia sat up and rubbed her shoulders, causing her blouse, which had been draped over her like a blanket, to slide off and reveal her nudity.
She drowned in the horror of it.
She had been here on business and now she was naked.
Anyone could be planning to show the house this morning.
She grabbed her glasses from the floor nearby and fumbled them on, then quickly put on her clothes, shoving her underwear in her trouser pocket since it seemed to have been ripped in half.
Ripped in half?
So it had really happened. Adia could have believed that she’d hit her head and crawled up the stairs… maybe. But rip her own underwear in half? No way.
His image flashed in her mind. He was real. And he had a name.
“William?” she called, knowing somehow that there would be no answer.
She searched the other bedrooms on the second floor.
She climbed up the walnut stair to the third floor. The old nursery stood empty, as did the other two bedrooms.
She dashed down the stairs and grabbed her phone from the mantel, then walked slowly through the first floor rooms.
“William?” she called again, feeling stupid.
No answer.
When she had checked both parlors, and the porches, she walked slowly through the center hall and out the front door, locking it behind her.
It wasn’t until she was replacing the faceplate on the lockbox that she realized how brave she was being. She’d been more spooked here yesterday with clients in tow than she was just now, wandering through the house alone.
It was probably the adrenaline of waking up naked someplace you weren’t supposed to be.
And the sexy stuff.
Snap out of it, she told herself. Think about that stuff when you get out of here.
The midmorning sun blazed through the trees as she half-trotted to her car.
6
A few hours later, Adia stepped into the Barry White diner.
She wasn’t feeling super hungry, but since she’d skipped breakfast, she figured she ought to eat.
She certainly didn’t want to spend the whole day moping around her apartment, fretting that she was going crazy and mooning about the mysterious guy who had apparently wanted nothing more in life than to give her an earth shattering orgasm, hold her speechless form until she fell asleep, and then head for the hills.
She’d taken
a long hot shower, cleaned her apartment and then headed here, stopping at CVS on the way for a pair of cheap sunglasses.
Her regular glasses had been bugging her all day. No mater how many times she wiped them with the microfiber cloth, she couldn’t seem to get them clean. Everything looked a little blurry with them on. But the sun was so bright today, she needed something between her eyes and the glare.
Between that and the sore spot on her neck, she wasn’t exactly in tip-top shape. Her hand went absently to the small welt, just below her ear.
If I got bedbugs from that filthy place, I’ll have to burn everything I own…
A shiver of revulsion raced through her, and her skin began to crawl.
Lisa, the tallest, thinnest, blondest waitress in the place caught her eye and waved her toward a booth.
“Just you today, hon?” Lisa asked agreeably.
Adia didn’t like to admit it but she had sometimes been just a little jealous of Lisa’s good looks. Today for some reason, she wasn’t feeling it though. Didn’t even have the heart to wonder if the just-you question hid an insult.
“Yep,” she replied. “Just me. Can I have some coffee and a Barry White special?”
“Sure babe. Eggs over easy? Wheat toast?” Lisa asked. Adia noticed that she was chewing gum. Something about the wet popping sound intrigued her.
“Yeah, sure,” she replied distractedly.
Lisa wandered off to fetch the meal and Adia looked around. She’d been coming to the Barry White Diner since she was in high school, and it had been there for many decades before that. The orange naugahyde booths were the same as in the 1950s. The waitresses still wore red skirts and white aprons. But somehow it was different today, brighter. And something about the food smelled…off. Usually, the heady aroma of bacon and assorted syrups had her ravenous by the time her meal arrived.
Today, not so much.
She turned away from the too-sunny window and allowed herself to think about the man again.
He had been so handsome, and somehow… familiar. Like she had known him all her life.
She closed her eyes for a moment and could see him before her again, trapping her wrist in his hand, but looking back at her with a look that said he was trapped himself.
And the house. The house had been new again, and there had been no train track…
It wasn’t real, that part couldn’t have been. It had almost seemed like they had gone back in time, or maybe brought the house forward in time. Either way, it was ludicrous. It just wasn’t possible. She must have been seeing things. The combination of mildew and asbestos had gotten to her.
But she found herself wondering what the house had looked like back in the late 1800s.
Lisa arrived with the food, breaking her reverie.
“Rough night, huh?” she said as she slid the loaded plate onto the table.
“Pardon?” Adia asked, moving her hands quickly out of Lisa’s path to avoid being touched. She didn’t need some flashback of the woman’s prom night clouding up her already muddled thoughts.
“I just thought, you know, the sunglasses, the green around the gills look,” Lisa tipped her a conspiratorial wink. “We’ve all been there.”
“Oh,” Adia said, trying on a smile that she hoped looked more convincing than it felt. “You got me.”
“I can always tell,” the waitress said, zipping away to tend to another table.
Adia glanced down at her plate. It didn’t look good. There was nothing really wrong with it, she could see that much. But somehow, it just didn’t interest her. She choked down a few bites of egg and a couple of sips of black coffee.
When Lisa came with the check, Adia found herself wishing the lovely girl would lean down closer so she could hear her smack her gum better. But Lisa just dropped the slip and dashed off to another table.
Adia left a tip under the salt shaker and took the check to the register by the front door. As she handed over the cash, Lisa emerged from the kitchen, carrying two plates. Adia’s stomach did a triple flip.
That smell.
What was on that plate?
Adia had never smelled any food so appealing before. She watched intently as Lisa slid the dishes onto the table of a middle-aged couple.
“One gobbler,” she said, handing over what looked like a thanksgiving omelet, complete with cranberries. Gross. “And steak and eggs, extra rare.”
Adia couldn’t take her eyes off it. Succulent juices oozed from the steak, mingling in a delightful pink pool in the center of the plate.
She took a step toward the table, then remembered herself. What was she going to do, march over and take the man’s meal? She didn’t even like steak, and when she did, she always ordered it well done, the crispier the better. What had come over her?
She collected her change and headed out. Her head was pounding and her neck ached, maybe she would just take an aspirin and a nap.
7
As soon as Adia slipped back into her car, the phone rang.
Todd Filbertson and Jenna
This day just kept getting better. She swiped to answer.
“This is Adia.”
“Hey, it’s Todd, Todd Filbertson,” he explained, as if she might have forgotten which Todd had been dragging her through every house in Tarker’s Hollow.
“Hi, Todd. How’s it going?” she asked.
“Good, good. Listen, I just found a house,” he told her as though he had personally hiked a mountain to discover the property. He was a regular Marco Polo.
Adia knew he was just bored and surfing the online real estate sites.
“Okay, which house?” she humored him.
“652 Charlestown Avenue,” he said.
She knew it well.
“That’s a very busy street, remember we ruled it out when you started looking?”
“This one looks really nice, though,” he said. “And it just popped up.”
“No, I think it’s just showing up for you again because they reduced the price. Again. It’s been on the market for almost a year,” she explained. “That being said, you will get more house for your money on a busy street. If you’re willing to consider that compromise, why don’t we set up a showing?”
“Jenna has off today and I’m on lunch break. Can we see it right now? We’re actually in my car out front of it - pictures online make it look empty so we figured we could see it whenever we want.”
Adia counted to five slowly in her head.
“Sure, Todd, let me put in a request,” she replied. “If they say yes, I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.”
“It’s empty,” he reminded her.
“I still need permission, and the code to get in,” she told him. “I’m calling now, just hang tight.”
Fourteen minutes later, Adia pulled up in front of 652 Charlestown Avenue. Cars whistled past as she eased her door open just enough to slip out and head to the front door.
The front of the brick colonial stared in stalwart silence at the hustle and bustle of Charlestown Ave. A generous coating of dust lined the porch. No one had been here in a while.
Todd and Jenna didn’t bother getting out of his SUV until Adia had the key out of the lockbox.
“The street’s pretty busy,” Todd said, his tone a bit nasally, as though Adia hadn’t just warned him about the busy street.
“Yup,” she nodded, pushing open the door for them to enter.
“Thanks for getting us in, Adia,” Jenna smiled at her on the way past.
Jenna smelled good. Normally Jenna’s scent reminded Adia of a flowery meadow, but today, it made her think about that steak.
What was wrong with her? She vaguely remembered reading somewhere that people smelled odd things when they were having a stroke. Was she having a stroke? She didn’t think so. Although it would explain a lot.
Adia accompanied them through the living room and into the kitchen.
The house was bright and pretty, updated throughout, but it was the open kitche
n leading into a large family room that was practically all windows, overlooking the spacious backyard that really made it feel like something special. If you got past the busy street, this was really more house and better condition than these two could otherwise afford.
“Ohh,” Jenna breathed, chewing her gum very slowly.
“The cabinets aren’t custom,” Todd sniped. He was standing behind Jenna, rubbing his hands up and down her arms like a Boy Scout trying to start a fire.
“Most homes at this price point don’t have custom cabinets,” Adia said. “My real concern here is the street. I can tell you it will definitely make the place harder to sell when the time comes. But you have to ask yourself some questions. Will it bother you day-to-day? How did you feel about it, pulling into the drive?”
“I want to see upstairs,” Todd announced, ignoring Adia’s invitation to share his opinion.
They headed up, Jenna first, so that Todd could pinch her bottom, with Adia coming up last to witness it.
She was really getting sick of his behavior. What the hell was the matter with him? And why didn’t Jenna lose her mind being pawed at constantly?
Adia took a deep breath. She was probably just feeling impatient because of her headache. And not just her head - the pain in her neck seemed to be getting worse, too.
Todd was always a handful, but she normally took no offense at his attitude. Dealing with the likes of him was her job. And she was really good at it.
“Cheap tile,” Todd announced after a cursory look at the hall bath.
Adia decided not to point out that it was actually a just a vinyl floor - made to look like tiles.
They toured the rest of the second floor in silence, then they headed to the basement, where Todd made various incorrect assumptions about the age and condition of the utilities. He never liked being told he was wrong, and Adia was used to finding various ways to help him save face in front of Jenna, but today it was hard.
By the time they got back up to the first floor, Adia was really biting her tongue.
