by Logan Fox
He thrusts the last of his cock inside me, forcing my ass hard against the wall.
Filling me entirely. Possessively.
I wriggle and moan and nip at his mouth, furious at him for stopping. But I have no control over him. No control over myself.
He breaks our kiss. Moves his lips to my ear. “Why is forbidden fruit always so goddamn sweet?”
I choke instead of replying. My mind is such a mess I doubt I could form a sentence. All I manage is a pathetic, “Please.”
“Please what, Charlotte?” he demands in a rough voice. “Please stop? Please fuck you harder?”
“Harder,” I whimper.
He growls, and again I’m convinced he’s furious at me. There’s a snarl on his face when he pulls back and studies me with a condescending flick of his eyes. “You should be telling me to stop,” he says. “You should be screaming for help.”
I shake my head. Nip at my bottom lip. “No. I want this. I want…you.”
There’s a flurry of movement, then I’m on my back on the desk beside us. My dress is gathered at my waist, my underwear on the floor. Those black eyes scour me with painful intensity as Fyre grabs the straps of my dress and tugs the fabric down my breasts.
My nipples are already hard, but they constrict into little nubs at his hungry gaze. And when that dark gaze slides down, down…my pussy clenches.
His lips part, an almost-sigh whispering out of his mouth as he drags a knuckle over my pussy. “You do want me, don’t you?” He lifts his hand, his eyes locked on mine as he sucks on his bent knuckle.
I start to sit up, but his hand darts out and closes around my throat as he pushes me back onto the desk. A dark, twisted reverie flashes into my mind.
A tall silhouette. Blood in the air.
I hadn’t forgotten. How could I? But I’d pushed that night into the depths of my mind, to a place I never go for fear of losing my way back. So many memories buried there—when my period came on the bus, my father’s death and my mother’s slow demise into psychosis, my first foster family, my last.
Peter Monroe.
Fyre shoves two fingers deep inside me, his palm slamming against my clit.
“It was you!” It’s more a confirmation than an accusation. I know it was him, but I want to know why it was him. What drove him to break into my house that night and do what he did. The grip around my throat is too tight for there to be much vehemence in my words, but something in my voice makes him pause.
He studies me, a smile growing on his lips. “Me,” he whispers.
Then he bends over me, digs the tip of his dick into my pussy, and thrusts in balls deep.
My eyes squeeze closed as I let out a strangled yelp. There’s more pain now, the ephemeral kind that burrows bone-deep inside me. I try and push him away, but he’s too big, too heavy, too determined.
And when he starts fucking me, I’m too paralyzed by the intoxicating mix of depravity and fear to keep fighting him. He peppers my jaw and lips with tiny kisses, his breath puffing over my skin with every furious thrust. My nails dig into his jacket, trying to get at his flesh, but it’s too thick for me to penetrate.
My tense body melts under the force of his passion until it’s only the grip around my throat keeping me in place for him. Even the pain in my belly fades, replaced with a hedonistic ache I never want to end.
“You were in my house,” I say.
Fyre pauses only long enough to swipe his tongue over my chin and give me a hard kiss before he picks up his pace again. “I had to keep you safe.”
“You touched me while I was sleeping.”
He makes a strange sound—a laugh, a grunt, I don’t know—and leans back. His hips slow until I can feel every inch of his hard cock moving in and out of my dripping pussy. “Does that sicken you?” he asks.
I open my mouth to tell him it does—that he sickens me—but then his thumb makes contact with my clit. My protest becomes a moan as I arch up off the desk.
“Spread those pretty legs of yours,” he commands.
And for some reason, I obey.
He tears his eyes away from me, staring down where he’s penetrating me. “I can’t control myself around you,” he says as he massages my clit hard enough to make me whimper. “You destroyed my defenses, ripped away everything that makes me human. Now there’s nothing left but this…” He grimaces, grabs my hips, and rams himself into me so hard that I let out a breathless cry. “This animal.”
His gaze travels to my breasts, my mouth, my eyes. “But the more I try and stay away from you, the more I think about you. The more I want to do these nasty things to you.”
I squirm when he touches my clit again, and let out an indignant gasp when his other hand slides down and starts stroking my backdoor. “No! Professor, please—”
“Gideon,” he growls. “You will call me Gideon.”
“Please...Gideon.” His name feels strange on my tongue. Taboo. Erotic. Dirty.
And oh so fucking good.
But even though I used his name, Gideon doesn’t stop. Because he isn’t here anymore. It’s just his spirit animal. And that beast doesn’t give a fuck about my feelings or my innocence. It wants to claim every inch of me—from the sweet to the depraved.
I sob out a gasp when he forces the tip of his finger into me. My back arches a second before I wrap my legs around his waist. I hold him in place, his cock buried as deep as it can go as he begins to finger-fuck my backdoor, sending electric thrills through my entire body.
My climax is iridescent.
I yell out his name, but he slaps a hand over my mouth so nothing but a muffled moan can come out. My hips buck against him as if I can somehow wedge his cock in another inch without him splitting me open. As I unravel, I’m distantly aware of his groans, of the hand around my throat tightening, tightening.
Blackness edges my vision when my eyes eventually fly open, vignetting Gideon’s carnal grimace. His eyes are on mine, locked on so hard it’s as if he can see right into my soul.
His cock pumps deep inside me, filling me with his seed. There’s so much it oozes out as he fucks me through his orgasm. It drips between my legs and down my crack, lubricating the finger he’s still thrusting in and out of my backdoor.
“Christ, Charlotte,” he growls. “You’re holding me like a fucking fist.”
And that’s because he hasn’t stopped. He’s still fucking me with his dick and his finger, and it’s too much. I’m coming again, and this time it’s with a silent scream that clutches my body like a vise.
Gideon pulls out of me, and then something hot and wet closes over my clit.
I see stars when he sucks.
An entire galaxy opens up and swallows me whole.
“Stop, please,” I whimper.
He licks me slow and hard as if he’ll disobey. But then he kisses the inside of my thigh, my knee.
Gideon leans over me, finally taking his hand off my throat, and smooths back a chunk of hair from my sweat-misted face. “I love you, Charlotte Ash. Just in case there was any doubt left in your mind.”
I let what he says soak in as I lay there trembling under his strong body. Then I lick my lips, shake my head.
He blinks, straightens. Waits.
I push onto my elbows and manage to come to a seat. There’s a mess on the desk under my ass, and it makes the surface slippery. I grab onto him for support as I tug my straps back onto my shoulders, as I smooth my dress down my shaking legs.
With a hard swallow, I finally force the words past my throat. “What you did was wrong.”
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t defend himself.
I pull my leg back, maneuvering it around him so I can slip off the table. I can barely stand, but I make my spine straight and I take my hands off him, and I stare up at him until my neck feels like it will break.
“I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”
His head tilts ever so slightly, and in just that slight gesture, I see a vast change
in him. Suddenly I’m not facing my sexy therapist…I’m staring up at a darkly dangerous man.
I take a step back, my stomach bottoming out in terror, but he grabs me by the throat again. Pushes me against the wall. His lips twitch as if he’s battling something, but whether it’s a smile or a snarl, I can’t tell.
“There is no fighting this.” He leans into me. “No fighting me.”
I open my mouth, but he doesn’t give me a chance to speak.
“We were meant to be together, Charlotte. And we will be, one way or the other.”
He releases me, steps back. His eyes go to the drawing on the desk. Somehow it escaped our wild fucking undamaged. He rolls it up and drops his head to smell the paper. When his eyes flicker up to me, my body responds with a host of confusing signals. My mouth dries in terror, my pussy clenches in excitement, and my heart thuds, thuds, thuds like a drum.
“Goodbye for now, Miss Ash.”
Chapter Thirteen
Fyre
I love dismal weather, the sound of rain pattering on the roof of my sedan. Rain decreases visibility, allows people like me to blend into the shadows. I can’t have anyone spot me.
Not tonight.
It’s been three weeks since I said goodbye to Charlotte, and my heart hasn’t stopped aching. I barely eat. Sleep is but a fond memory. My every thought, both waking and those in limbo, are of her.
The way her lips formed my name. The feel of her clamping over my cock. The taste of her arousal on my fingertips.
I haven’t been to see her since that day in my classroom. I knew if I did that, I would take her whether she wanted me to or not. She already hates me. She’s already terrified of me. I can’t push her further away. I have to prove to her how great my love is. The lengths I will go to for her.
See, Charlotte Ash doesn’t know Gideon Fyre. She only knows me as her professor. It’s past time I introduced her to the real me, the man who will be at her side for eternity.
I knew what I would do the moment she strutted out of my classroom without looking back. But it’s taken me three weeks to get here, to this point of no return.
I snort quietly to myself as I study the apartment building up ahead. It’s not dilapidated, but it’s not in the best state of repair either. I guess the rent is as reasonable here as it is back in Charlotte’s apartment building.
The fact that Peter Monroe dug out his burrow this close to my Charlotte is no coincidence. Neither is the weight of his phone in my pocket.
There’s nothing mysterious about the universe. There’s a logical explanation for everything if you know how to connect the dots.
That night when I was outside Charlotte’s apartment, the night I met the man who dared spy on her through her bedroom window—that night the stars aligned.
That was no stranger.
He was none other than the man who hurt my Charlotte. I knew it as soon as I dug up the newspaper article stating he’d been arrested in connection with a suspected kidnapping. His picture was disarming—a handsome, middle-aged man in a tasteful, if casual, outfit. The epitome of a filthy rich architect.
Emphasis on the filthy.
His case wasn’t in court very long. Weeks after proceedings began, the judge declared a mistrial. A break in the chain of custody, key pieces of evidence mishandled.
Charlotte never even got to testify.
And Peter Monroe was released.
No wonder my little girl could only find peace in those white pills she swallowed every night. What sane person could ever rest knowing the monster that had stolen them, had raped and tortured them for a week, was roaming the streets?
Sometimes I wonder if I’m as much a criminal as Peter Monroe. If my sick is anything close to his sick. But then this will happen. I’ll be holding the phone of the very man I was hunting out…and I know my purpose is so much greater than all the Peter Monroes of the world.
They’re the disease. I’m the motherfucking cure.
We’re not in the least alike, but we do have something in common. This man is obsessed with my Charlotte.
But not as much as I am. And I’m about to prove it.
Chapter Fourteen
Fyre
An hour goes by before Peter Monroe walks out of his apartment building. He opens an umbrella, cigarette smoke puffing out from beneath it before he climbs into his silver Mercedes Benz. White light blooms, LED’s lighting up in a strip as the headlamps come on.
Then he pulls away, headed for his favorite stripper bar. It’s Wednesday night, and this has been his routine for the past three weeks.
He’s a loner, as so many of these perverted freaks are. Keeping to himself ensures fewer people ever become aware of just what a psychopath he is. But he craves human contact too. Lick Kitty Lick is the perfect place for him to immerse himself in humanity without drawing attention. It’s a high-class bar—velvet ropes and a red carpet out front—and the kitties inside belong to shapely young things, prettier than most.
I park my Audi in the darkest corner of the parking lot and give Peter a few minutes to make his way inside before I follow.
His face has healed nicely since our scuffle in the street last month. The one scar that hasn’t fully healed yet he keeps concealed with makeup. He was limping for a week, but after I discovered who he was I almost wish I’d killed him that night.
Almost.
If I had, he’d be dead. But there’s a debt he must settle first. One he owes my darling Charlotte.
One he’ll be paying before the night is up.
My lips curl up in a smile as I locate him near one of the stages, a drink in his hand and a smile on his face as he watches the girl perform for him. I slide a hand into my jacket to feel for the cool, hard length of my hunting knife. Its solidity lends me focus. Strength. Determination.
I can’t wait to show Charlotte my knife. To leave its wet, cross-hatched marks over her pale skin.
I will take her to my hunting lodge. I’ve wanted to since the day she kissed me. But it’s not the right time. It must be snowing, and from the reports I receive in my emails, the first snows haven’t fallen yet.
Pushing the thought of her soft skin and those big, expressive eyes from my mind, I order a drink and keep to the shadows.
He usually stays for two hours, ending the evening with a private lap dance from whichever dancer caught his fancy. But tonight he seems agitated—he’s constantly looking over his shoulder, only orders two drinks, and within an hour he’s already headed for the exit.
Something spooked him. He caught wind of another predator. Of me. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve locked onto him. He’s already sucking on his last breath.
He’s parked in a well-lit area of the parking lot, so when I come up behind him and he turns—having heard the scrape of my shoes on the tar—I’m in full sight.
Peter recognizes me instantly. His hands go up before he pushes them down at his side, his flight or fight response warring with bravado, with anger, with whatever the fuck is raging through his head.
“You!” he spits out. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
I laugh.
He freezes, eyes widening, gaze searching my face. He must see something he doesn’t like, because now he’s backing up, reaching out blindly behind him for the handle of his car door.
I have his phone in my hand, and I press the side to make the screen turn on. I’ve been at this long enough to know the kind of people who can easily unlock a person’s phone. I’d expected something a little more sophisticated, but Peter’s pin is simply his year of birth and his favorite Red Socks player’s team number.
Pathetic, just like him.
“You could try,” I tell him, stepping closer. “But if anything happens to me, these pictures will end up on the FBI’s desk before morning.”
I keep him in my periphery as I open the phone’s picture gallery and tap on one of the photos, zooming in to full screen.
Even in the yellow light of the parking lot lamp
, Peter’s skin goes sickly pale. But still his mouth tightens and his hands curl into fists. He’s a fighter, which is why he was never convicted. People like him think they have enough money to own anything—even another human being. He doesn’t think what he did to Charlotte and those other girls was wrong, just expensive.
My stomach turns, and bitter bile surges into my mouth.
“What do you want?” Peter snaps, his eyes in slits.
“Just a few moments of your time,” I tell him, giving him a warm smile. “I have a business proposition for you.”
Peter eyes me suspiciously, one side of his mouth in a sneer.
“So you wouldn’t be interested in a close-knit group of friends sharing certain assets with each other? Photos, videos, birds.” The slimy prick’s eyes light up at the familiar code word. “Consider it repayment for your…injuries,” I say, smiling warmly.
He nods and waves a hand for me to lead the way.
There are three types of predators in this world.
The poor who debase their bodies with alcohol and drugs which, combined with an abusive upbringing, transform those wretches into men who lurk in alleyways and pay ten-dollar hookers to suck their dirty penises.
The wealthy. People who can have everything and yet still crave what they cannot have—another’s innocence. They hide right out in the open.
Then there’s me.
He follows me to my car. When I grab a handful of his hair and slam it into the side of the car door as I’m opening it for him, he goes down without a sound.
Chapter Fifteen
Fyre
I’m careful. I’m intelligent. And I care so much more for Charlotte than Peter ever could. I tell him this while I’m shoving him into the little box I had prepared just for this occasion.
A gust of wind slams into the side of the barn, rattling its loose boards and sending hay dust swirling into the air.
