by Logan Fox
But I did, Charlotte. I noticed you, and I locked onto your scent, your presence, like the wolf that I am.
Now I sit here, stewing. I want to race up those stairs and demand you close your curtains so everyone and their dog can’t look right into your bedroom. But I want to look into your bedroom, so you can’t very well be closing your curtains, can you?
I rub my palms against my thighs, the thick jeans creating friction with my skin. It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night, Charlotte. Someone your age should be out dancing. Drinking with friends. Fuck it, watching a movie if you’re into that. But here you are, alone in your apartment, with only your bedroom light on. At this angle, I can see a vague suggestion of a lamp and a bedpost. You haven’t come close enough to the window for me to see you.
I jerk at a touch to my lips and snatch my hand away from my mouth. I felt the desperation in your kiss. Fuck, it trembled through your entire body when I slid my hands around your back and dragged you up against me.
Did you think it would make me forget that you tried to cover up the fact that I scare you?
My fingers trace the outline of my lips.
God, but you taste so good, little Charlotte. You’ve poisoned me with that sweet mouth of yours. You’ll be my undoing, but I don’t give a fuck. I was obsessed before…now I’m addicted.
My phone is on the seat beside me. I’m so tempted to call you, but the time isn’t right. If I fuck up now, I fuck up for good. I’ll lose my chance to be with you in the way I so badly want to.
My cock hardens at the thought of being inside Charlotte. Having her pussy grip me, desperate. Hungry like her lips.
Like my soul ever since I met her. I could have devoured every inch of her supple body last night, but when I slid my hand over her tit, she pushed me away wearing a scandalized expression like she’d never considered the thought that there could be more than just kissing.
For her sake, I hope that seed is good and planted.
I reach for my phone, then snatch my hand back and twist my bottom lip with my fingers.
This street is dark. Good for me, shit for her. What the hell is she thinking walking around at night in this neighborhood? Can’t she feel all those eyes on her? The predators, the criminals, the psychos?
There’s so much I must show my little Charlotte. How to lie, how to control her emotions, how to overcome her phobias. I will teach her to heel, and bend, and take every inch of my cock without gagging or bleeding.
My semi becomes a raging hard-on, making me shift in my seat. I could have ignored it, forced it to go away, but then a shadow falls over the apartment window which resolves a moment later into Charlotte’s silhouette.
Fuck.
She’s no longer wearing her bulky clothes. In fact…I don’t think she’s wearing anything at all.
Temptation washes over me, too hard, too fast to push back. Groaning, I unzip my pants and haul out my dick before it snaps in two. Charlotte stands by the window, and it takes me a second staring up at her through slitted eyes before I figure out what she’s doing.
Smoking something. A cigarette? No—I didn’t smell tobacco smoke when I was up there yesterday. A joint?
Bad girl, Charlotte, standing there naked smoking weed. Don’t you know the entire street can see you? Or don’t you care?
She’s on some heavy anti-depressants. Which means she probably gives zero fucks about anything right now. I could go up there, break inside, fuck her against that dirty kitchen sink of hers. I stroke my cock, imagining she’s begging, screaming for me to stop…but I don’t.
I climax before she’s done with her joint, and by the time I’ve cleaned up, she’s already stepped away from the window. But her light stays on.
I shouldn’t stay out here all night, but I know I’ll be here until dawn to make sure nothing happens to her. I need air. A quick walk up and down the street should clear out the cobwebs. I make sure not to slam the car door. Then, shoving my hands into the pockets of my trench coat to ward off the brisk wind, I head for the end of the street.
A man comes into view a few yards away. An electricity pole had blocked him from me while I was inside the car. As I draw near, I hunch my shoulders and give him a sidelong glance to make sure I don’t recognize him. It pays to be careful, and tonight it pays fucking handsomely.
He notices my look and gives me an amiable nod, holding my stare.
Should have walked right past.
Should have gotten back in my fucking car and left. But this isn’t a coincidence. It’s a sign.
“Every Saturday night,” the man says.
He looks past me, tilting his head up so he can stare into Charlotte’s window. My stomach twists. Acid shoots up my throat, and for a wild second, I’m convinced I’ll puke. But I breathe instead. Fight the physical response to a psychological reaction.
My Charlotte.
I look up. Her light is off. The man pushes away from the wall he’d been leaning against and gives me another smile. Like we’re brothers, him and I. Sick, perverted kin lurking out here in the dark, spying on an innocent girl.
My girl.
“The fuck you say?” I growl at him.
He shrugs, laughs. Pulls a box of cigarettes from his pockets and has the fucking audacity to offer me one. “Never could resist jailbait. But that one up there, she’s special.”
My entire body tenses. Something is off. This isn’t some homeless man hunting out free entertainment for the evening. His clothes are well cut. He has an expensive haircut. And his fingers are manicured.
The man takes back his box of cigarettes and lights himself one with a platinum Zippo. “She knows I’m down here, watching.” When he speaks the smell of his freshly lit cigarette wafts to me. That and liquor, but not a drug-store make with a cheaply printed label. Something else, too, but I can’t define it. “That’s why she puts on a show for me every Saturday night. Stands right there in the window and flashes me her tight little body.”
It’s dark on this street, but even so, I should never have done what I did.
It’s a culmination of so many things. The man’s filthy mouth. The fact that he dared look at my Charlotte. That he called her jailbait.
Everything about him was wrong. I could smell putrid perversion coming off him in waves.
The first blow takes him by surprise, but he’s ready for the second. We struggle, and I push him until his back slams into a brick wall. A pool of darkness hides us from the world as he slams his fist into my midsection, winding me. But I’ve fought so many like him before, and I always go for the only thing they cherish on their foul, depraved bodies.
The man lets out a pained moan when I drive my knee into his testicles, and then folds up and drops to the side like a felled tree.
Blood sings its siren call in my ears, but I can’t end him. Not here, right outside Charlotte’s apartment. Too many eyes, come morning. Too many questions when those eyes report the crime. So I rob the man of his possessions and stalk back to my car wearing a grimace.
His phone is a dead weight in my pocket, his wallet feather-light in comparison. I don’t know why I took it, except it probably makes sense that I did. Thinking is too difficult right now—all I can smell is his blood.
Because once he was down, I didn’t stop. Only the thought that I might kill him, that Charlotte might somehow find out, that she wouldn’t understand I was protecting her…that stopped me.
When I climb into my car, I sit for a second and let the stink of blood suffuse the pocket of air inside the cab. Then I roll down a window and let the crisp wind chase it out.
I look up at my girl’s dark window.
I’ll always keep you safe, little Charlotte.
I have your file. I know what happened to you. No names, no faces, no dates—I’m not privy to that level of detail for security reasons, but that doesn’t matter.
I know you.
I know what happened to you.
How it changed you.
&nb
sp; Why you’re in my class in the first place.
Soon, Charlotte Ash, you’ll be back to your old self. With one important change, of course.
You’ll be mine.
I shift in my seat, grinding my teeth. The smell of blood is so intense, it’s making my mouth salivate. Which is when I realize I haven’t had enough.
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Six
Charlotte
I wake up with a pounding heart. For a second, I think I’m still trapped in my nightmarish past. Someone holding me down, the click-click-click of a camera nearby. But the sound isn’t coming from my memory-dream. It’s coming from my living room. And when I sit up in a rush on my bed, I can see a pale glow under my bedroom door.
Someone’s in my fucking house.
There’s a scream bottled up in my throat, held captive by a sudden restrictive terror that refuses to let me go.
Click. Click.
No.
Please God.
It’s him.
It’s the man who locked me in his special room for seven days. The one who stole my freedom.
Not just my freedom—my life.
I choke out a sob before I can stop myself, and then clap my hands over my mouth. The light winks off. There’s sudden quiet in my home. The only sound is my hitching breath.
Then footsteps.
Heavy. Hollow. Footsteps.
My hand darts out. I barely manage to control myself before sliding open my nightstand drawer.
He’s getting closer.
Oh my God, he’s almost here.
My hand quivers, knocking around the various knick-knacks inside my drawer as I search for the knife I’ve kept in there ever since I was released from the hospital.
Months it’s been, and I still can’t get to sleep without it. It doesn’t matter where I live—I’ve been hopping from apartment to apartment like a fresh set of walls around me is all I need to stop replaying my week of hell.
Seven days. Almost, nearly, seven nights. But he made a mistake, and I gathered every iota of courage I possessed, and I escaped.
Malnutrition. Shock. Cut and bruised all over. Internal damage. I almost didn’t make it to safety. He was on my tail for the last mile I had to run. But then there was a car, and the middle-aged couple stopped for me. I would be dead if they hadn’t stopped.
Or even worse…I’d still be in that tiny, special room.
My heart shudders in my chest as I wrap my fingers around the knife’s handle. I draw it out and slide my legs over the side of the bed at the same time. I try and move fluidly, like a snake, so nothing creaks or squeaks, or groans.
Hand tight around the knife.
Thump. Thump. Footsteps right up to the door.
The handle turns.
I slip under the bed in a rush as the intruder pushes open my bedroom door. I clamp one hand over my mouth, the other holding the quivering knife beside my head. Ready to jab out at his ankles if he comes close. Ready to stick it right through his fucking eye if he bends down to peek under my bed skirt.
This time, I’m ready to kill.
But he just stands there by the door. Not moving, not coming closer. Is he looking for me? Wondering if I’m in the closet or under the bed? Those are the only two options. I couldn’t very well have climbed out of the fucking window.
I barely hold back a manic cackle.
It’s as if I didn’t take my medication. As if I didn’t smoke that joint. I’m right back there on the edge of the world, rocking, rocking, rocking as I stare down at the black abyss of my hollow mind. It would be so easy to tip forward and just let go. Just let whatever is going to happen, happen. It’ll be over soon anyway, won’t it? One way or the other.
A tear flashes down my cheek and tickles its way over the back of my hand.
The intruder steps into my bedroom.
And then he closes the door behind him.
It’s when he’s standing less than two feet away from the bed that I smell it. Rich, metallic. It fills my bedroom like an expensive perfume.
Blood.
That scent, so strong I can taste it in the back of my throat, whips my frantic mind into a frenzy. I lash out with the knife, screaming hoarsely. The man steps back with demonic calm, the blade whisking as it brushes his pants. And then he brings his shoe down on the back of my hand, crushing my bones. My hoarse yell disintegrates into a pathetic whimper as I fight through the pain.
He wrenches the knife from my unresisting fingers, reaches under the bed, and grabs a fistful of my hair. My lungs claw for air as he hauls me out with that grip alone, but before I have enough for a new scream, he spins me around and shoves me against the wall.
Lights flash and dance in the darkness of my room.
The smell of blood lies thick in the air.
Something cold and hard touches my throat. The flat of the knife—not the edge. A warning. Just a twist of his hand and my throat is sliced.
It’s too dark in here to make out anything but his shape, but I know he’s big.
My frantic mind conjures up the only person I know who could logically be standing here in the middle of the night with a knife to my throat…and my bladder releases a rush of warm urine down the inside of my thighs.
Peter Monroe.
An architect, once. But something had happened in his life. Something triggered a change in him. That led Peter to start work on a top-secret project at his lake house out in the Waspwood forest. When he was done, he had a secret cavity no one knew about, that no house plans would ever show and no one—especially his victims—would ever be able to escape from.
I was victim number three.
They still haven’t found the bodies of the other two girls he kidnapped, even though they searched every inch of his land for their graves.
It’s him holding me against the wall. It must be. And that blood I smell in the air? Could only be the blood of another hapless victim. He’s come to finish the job, to make sure I can never testify against him if some kind of miracle made that possible.
I’m convinced of all of this right up to the point where Peter dips his head and presses his lips to mine.
Chapter Seven
Charlotte
The kiss is brief, rough. Like the intruder is claiming my mouth before he claims my body. I know it’s not Peter—he never once tried to kiss me—but I don’t have the bandwidth to try and figure out who the hell he is. Not now. I’m too busy struggling, too busy trying to save my life. But every elbow jab I get in, every nail scratch, every sloppy punch only seems to spur him on even more.
He doesn’t care that I’ve pissed myself. He grips me, squeezes me right through that wet fabric. Maybe it even turns him on, because the sound he makes when he massages my pussy through my clothes is urgent and fierce.
He yanks down my pajama bottoms and shoves his knee between my legs, leaving me bare and exposed. Only then does he pause. My eyes are squeezed closed, so I don’t know if he’s looking down there or watching my face.
I don’t want to know. He’s too powerful, so there’s only one way this ends, and that’s all I’m praying for now.
For this to end.
His breath is warm and sweet on my face, and intensifies as he comes closer. He searches out my mouth with his again, bruising my lips with another violent kiss.
Then it hits me. I must have slipped off to sleep. I’m dreaming.
They’ve been happening more often these days, these darkly erotic dreams. They’re never this vivid…but that’s because I’m remembering them after I’ve woken up. But I’m in one right now, aren’t I? Experiencing it right now. When you’re inside a dream, it’s all there is. It’s your entire world. So it feels just like real life, doesn’t it?
And if this is a dream, then this intruder can be anyone I want him to be.
Not my brutal captor, Peter Monroe…but someone else. Someone I actually like. Someone I wouldn’t fight if they had me pushed up against a wall.
My legs aren’t trying to slam closed anymore. Instead of clamping my jaw shut, I open my lips and let Fyre in. He growls deep in the back of his throat and grabs my breasts, squeezing me through my pajamas. I whimper against his mouth, and he draws back.
He exhales a warm breath over my face, and my eyes flutter open. The way the light falls in the room, his face is in shadow, but I’d know his silhouette anywhere.
Apparently I have a superpower. I can turn nightmares into wet dreams.
Fyre shoves the first two fingers of his hand into his mouth and sucks on them. Cleaning the blood from them, I realize when he reaches down and strokes my pussy with those damp fingers.
My hand travels down his hard stomach, then I tug at the button on his jeans. I can already feel the swell of his hard cock as I try to twist open the button, and as if to tease me with it, he steps closer and crushes his erection against my stomach.
He starts finger fucking me. Filling me deeply, Fyre grinds the base of his palm against my clit. I gasp as my pussy clenches, sending tight waves of aching bliss through my core.
I lean into his thrusts, my hips rocking backward and forward. He keeps his lips on mine, fierce and demanding, as his fingers thrust harder and harder into me.
I climax before I’ve even had a chance to open his jeans. He pulls away from me, and I can feel his eyes on me as I come undone under his touch. His dark shadow watches as he draws out my orgasm with a skilled thumb on my clit, and watches me melt away to nothing.
Then he drags his fingers out of me and lifts a hand to his face. I can hear him sucking on his fingers again.
Before I can gather myself, before I can make sense of anything, he grabs both my thighs and wrenches them open even further. Then he ducks down and sucks my clit between his lips, biting down so hard I let out a strangled scream.
My hands are in his hair, trying to yank him away, but he simply releases that tiny nub of tender flesh and instead licks the length of my slit with a warm, hard tongue before standing.
