by Logan Fox
“Then again… s’pose there’re other ways to relieve your stress,” Seth murmured. His arm slid around her waist, drawing her closer.
Pearl struggled for a second, realized this wasn’t helping her case, and let Seth draw her up over his stomach. Her knee slid between his legs — there really wasn’t enough room in the tub for both of them — and by the hardness of his dick, she knew he wasn’t suggesting a quick second-base make out session.
“Seth, I don’t—”
But his mouth stifled her protest. The hand around her waist tightened, and Pearl failed to stifle a moan of pain.
Of course, Seth misinterpreted the sound. He groaned in response to her, grabbing her thighs and tugging them over his legs. Warm water rushed over Pearl’s sex. She stiffened, jerking her mouth away from Seth’s.
“Seth—”
“Better than a backrub, right?”
She could hear the smile in his voice. Could feel his lust as he trembled under her.
“Just wish I didn’t have such a fucking headache,” Seth said, his mouth to her ear. He bit down on her lobe, and Pearl let out an involuntary moan.
His fingers trailed up the inside of her thighs as his teeth nipped their way around her ear.
New plan.
Hopefully, if she could extend their foreplay long enough for the drugs to kick in — because surely that had to happen some-fucking-time this century — she might have a chance to—
Seth speared into her, shattering thought. She cried out — part surprise and part ecstasy — and shuddered as she gripped his shoulders. He grabbed hold of her ass and slid out of her. Then he parted her and drove himself deep inside her again, drawing another stifled cry from her mouth.
Pearl’s forehead touched the rim of the tub. Water rushed up, splashing over her face, going up her nose. She spluttered, lifting her head and shaking it like a dog as she struggled for breath.
“You feel fucking amazing,” Seth rumbled into her ear. “So tight. So fucking hot.”
He slammed into her again. This time she did cry out, her nails sinking deep into Seth’s muscles. Her lower body was going numb with pleasure, a deep throb tearing through her sex in response to Seth’s every pounding thrust. She heard water pouring over the side of the bath, the splash of it as Seth sent wave after wave surging over the rim.
Thoughts about murders and killers and illegible notes evaporated. There was nothing except the blinding pleasure of Seth filling her. Of his fingers tugging her apart so he could bury himself deeper and deeper every time he thrust into her.
He fell into a devastating rhythm that rocked her in the water like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. Her hands slipped from his shoulders. She found the rim of the tub, gripping it hard as her back arched. At this angle, her clit grazed over Seth’s pelvis with every rocking thrust.
Seth caught her nipple between his teeth. Pearl moaned as the bud tugged free on his next thrust. She dipped her head, finding his lips, tasting whiskey in his mouth as he crushed his lips against hers. His tongue forced its way between her teeth, sliding into her mouth with a determination matched only by the unrelenting cock he drove into her.
His breaths came short and heavy. He tore his mouth away from hers. His teeth clicked over the collar around her neck. She’d gotten so used to that tiny bell jangling, she almost didn’t hear it anymore. Seconds later, the jangle stopped. Pearl blinked, focusing bleary eyes on Seth.
Seth grinned at her. The bell was between his teeth. He slammed hard into her, smiled around that bell, and then spat it out over the side of the bath.
“Makes a fucking noise, that thing.”
“Yes,” Pearl agreed breathlessly.
She moaned, her eyes fluttering closed as Seth’s hands began urging her to ride him. She did her best, using her grip on the side of the tub for leverage, but she was exhausted. And, although the pain from her wounds had again subsided — perhaps lulled by the warm water — trying to rock her hips tensed too many muscles on her back which in turn, drove tiny shards of pain into her flesh.
So Seth simply grabbed her hips and began sliding her over his pelvis, grinding his dick into her with a buck of his hips. He put a hand on her stomach, pushing her up. Pearl floundered, and held onto both sides of the tub. The new angle shoved Seth deeper inside her, but there wasn’t any friction on her clit anymore.
Her climax, so close she’d almost been able to taste it, disappeared.
Her moans stopped.
Seth’s face fell. He blinked up at her, that all-too-familiar concern creasing his eyes.
He opened his mouth, but Pearl shook her head, silencing him. Her hand slid down, trailing down his stomach. She touched her clit, giving it a quick, hard swipe with her fingertips. A rush of bliss forced her eyes closed and her head back. Seth’s hands tightened around her hips. His movements became urgent. Water frothed around them as he forced her up and down his cock.
Pearl tried to time his thrusts with the movement of her fingers, but soon it felt too much like a race she couldn’t win. Instead, she slowed until her fingertips were describing a slow, deliberate circle over her clit, massaging the engorged flesh beneath. She bit the inside of her lip, feeling her orgasm returning at breakneck speed.
It turned out she was right about it being a race she couldn’t win.
Seconds later, Seth came inside her with a groan that she felt almost as much as his pulsing cock. Pearl moaned, her fingertips falling away from her clit. Seth’s eyes squeezed closed, his mouth falling open as he drove hard enough into her to bring a gasp from her. And then he slumped, his beard drifting in the water like black seaweed.
For a second, she thought he’d passed out. That the tranquilizers had finally — fucking finally — taken effect.
But his eyes opened a second later, settling on her with startling intensity.
“You didn’t, did you?” he said, his voice hoarse and thick.
“Wha… no, I—”
“Not a problem, kitten.” Seth tugged her forward. His cock slid out of her, leaving her feeling empty and tingly. Before she had time for more than a startled, “Hey!” Seth had his mouth on her clit.
Pearl stiffened. Her knees were pressed to the side of the bath, her hands finding their way to the wall behind the tub. She moaned loudly as Seth swiped his tongue over the entire length of her sex, finishing with a flick against her clit.
The wounds on her back were a distant, pulsating agony as her muscles bunched and tensed.
Her fingertips tried to dig into the tiles. Her knees slid down until they rested on the crook of Seth’s shoulders, her thighs clamping on either side of his head like a vise.
Pearls’ forehead touched the wall, her lips a second later. She drew a deep, unsteady breath as Seth slid two fingers inside her, ramming them so deep inside her that his knuckles slammed into the bottom of her pelvis.
A tremor of pure ecstasy raced through her.
“Harder,” she managed, through a throat that seemed intent on throttling her.
So he went harder. And deeper. But slow, determined, vicious.
And with his tongue sliding over her clit, massaging it, drenching it, sucking it, and those fingers driving against her hard enough to force long gasps from her, Pearl came.
She heard herself mewling. Felt her thighs closing instinctively over Seth’s head, forcing his tongue hard against her clit. He sped up, a third finger joining the first two, drawing out her orgasm until she thought she’d passed out from lack of oxygen.
Seconds later, water enclosed her hips, then her waist, then her shoulders as he drew her down his body.
He slid a hand over her shoulders, squeezing her tight. Pearl gasped, writhing as dull pain throbbed through her muscles.
“That good, kitten?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.
“Mmm,” she managed, wriggling down until his arm wasn’t directly over the lashes Owen had given her. She released a long, unsteady breath and let her muscles relax.
Her eyes se
ttled on Seth’s phone. He’d put it back on the toilet seat, beside his empty whiskey glass.
How long was it going to take for the goddamn tranquilizers to kick in? Or had Ethan given her something else? No, she couldn’t think of any reason for him to do that, except malicious…
Fuck.
What if this was some form of retribution? Seemed to be way too much of that going on, of late. Somehow, despite the anger she’d seen on Ethan’s face earlier, she couldn’t imagine him as the vengeful type. She’d made his job more difficult, sure, but he was one of the good guys. He’d roll with the punches, right?
Right?
“Was that Owen on the phone?” Pearl murmured.
She could feel Seth’s heart beating hard and fast against her chest. He tightened his fingers around her upper arm, brushing his lips against her damp forehead before replying.
“Know him?”
“Who, Mr. Morrison?” Her voice dripped with acid. “Yeah, I fucking know him.”
“Know him or hate him?” Seth asked, shifting under her. “Shit, that reminds me. I have to charge my phone.”
“The chair.”
Seth paused. His muscles hardened under her, as if he’d stiffened at those words. “What did you say?” he asked in a low, rasping whisper.
“Your charger. I saw it on the chair in your room.”
Pearl looked up at Seth.
His eyes were unfocused, lips parted, face slack. Pearl drew back, forcing a hard swallow.
“Seth?”
“I don’t know anyone…” he began, but his voice sounded distant and troubled.
And then all the thoughts Pearl had pushed from her mind returned in a rush. Her chest grew tight as she watched Seth’s facial expression slide into something else. Something… hard.
Shit. Had she seriously just fucked a murderer?
A wave of nausea welled up inside her. She swallowed hard, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to force herself not to throw up.
“Pearl?” Seth’s voice was tight.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Just… queasy.”
“Pearl! What… what the fuck?” Seth’s legs kicked under her. One of them caught her in the stomach, winding her. She gasped for breath as Seth scrambled under her. Water frothed, splatting onto the floor.
“Seth, what—”
“Where—why is there so much fucking—” He cut off with a strangled sound, almost a screech.
The word he’d been trying to get out was ‘blood’.
The suds were all gone.
And they’d revealed pink water swirling with dancing tendrils of darker blood.
Something bumped into Pearl’s back. She reached behind her, drawing a soaked dressing from the water.
Shit.
Pearl’s eyes slid reluctantly back to Seth. The man had his chin dipped down, eyes narrowed. His lips tugged into a tiny, lopsided smirk.
“’Ark at ee, keeping secrets from Seth.”
Pearl’s mouth had gone dry. The man reached for her, thick fingers sliding over her shoulder until they found the first burning lash on her shoulder, the one no longer protected by a dressing. He touched a finger to that gash, his black eyes flaring when Pearl flinched.
“Join the club, lover.”
8
Seth's Little Secret
The dressing had gone cold in her hand. Even the skin of the water felt like icy silk as it slid up and down her body. The water was stilling — Pearl and Seth stared at each other without moving, still locked in an affectionate corkscrew of limbs.
“The dragon,” Pearl eventually said. “Owen. He… he didn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.”
The man still hadn’t drawn his hand away from her wound. He traced its outline, slitted eyes fixed to hers in hungry anticipation of another flinch of pain.
“Turn ‘round. Lemme see.”
Pearl gaped at him. Had the tranquilizer done something to Seth’s mind? Had he gone crazy in the span of a whole two minutes? Why the hell had he suddenly started speaking in a British accent?
She slid away — tried to slide away — but the hand on her shoulder tightened in warning.
“Turn ‘round.”
It wasn’t even Seth’s voice anymore. It was rough and grating, like he’d…
Partied? Screamed? Smoked too much?
She’d heard that voice before, hadn’t she? This morning. Right after he’d returned from dropping off Gia.
From murdering Gia?
Pearl’s limbs had gone numb. If the man hadn’t been under her, she probably would have drowned. And, like a predator recognizing signs of weakness in its prey, the man’s smirk deepened into a vicious smile. He slid his hand down her back, grabbing her waist hard enough to bruise, and flipped her over like a freshly caught flounder.
She managed a scream. Her hands slapped against the side of the tub, gripping the rim hard enough for the porcelain to bruise the inside of her fingers.
“Hush, now,” the man murmured.
He positioned her in the water, ripping her hand free from the sides despite how hard she clung to it. Crushing her wrists together, he held them to the side as he twisted her. She sat in front of him now, a pair of bunching thighs imprisoning her.
Fingers explored her back. He slid a fingertip under another of her dressings, tugging it free with a flick of his finger. Pearl shied away, but there was nowhere for her to go.
“Proper gorgeous,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Morrison so appreciates his sym’try, don’t he?”
Pearl shuddered. If she closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the legs wrapped around her and the fingers binding her wrists, then she’d have been convinced a complete stranger sat behind her.
If she screamed, would anyone hear her? Ethan’s apartment was right next door, but was he in? Or was this floor deserted, everyone too busy getting fucked or high?
Another of her dressings came free. Cold air teased a shiver of pain from the wound. Seconds later, the man brushed his thumb over the torn flesh.
Pearl bucked her shoulder, drawing her skin away from the man’s touch.
He laughed at that. The sound drove splinters of fear so deep inside Pearl’s heart they came out the other side. Her chest grew tight and hot with a suffocating panic.
So this was it.
This was how she died.
In a bathtub, having just fucked the man who would kill her.
Was he going to strangle her with a towel? Drown her? Perhaps he’d bash her head against the wall until her blood leaked down the tiles and turned the water a brighter pink than it already was.
“Seth, please.” She hardly recognized the wavering, tremulous words that spluttered from her mouth. “P-please don’t do-do this.”
“That wanker?” The man let out a low, sardonic laugh. “Aint ‘ere right now, lover. Jus’ me ‘n you. Me ‘n you… and this lush skin of yours.”
The last dressing came off. It plopped into the water, drawing Pearl’s eye as it floated past her. The blood that had hardened onto its surface dissolved in front of her eyes as it took on water and began to sink.
She shuddered again, her teeth clacking together.
The phone. The phone was less than three feet away. If she could just…
Reach past Psycho-Seth without him seeing? Dial a number without him noticing? Scream out that she needed help without him batting an eye?
Ha… Super Pearl? More like Super-Idiotic Pearl.
Another shudder. She slid her arms around herself, moving slowly.
“We’ll get out soon enough, mind. Jus’ gotta make ya a wee bit more presentable.”
The man drew the pad of his thumb over the wound beside her spine. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any pain. Then again she couldn’t feel anything anymore — not the water lapping against her skin, not the man’s breath on her neck, not the grip of her arms over her knees. Her body was numb, distant, alien.
There was a sucking sound. A plop, as if the man had tasted her bl
ood like a dab of ketchup from his thumb.
Pearl exhaled a week’s worth of air in a rush. Her breathing changed in that instant. Short, sharp breaths circulated through her nose; her lips were squeezed closed too hard for any air to trickle through.
A sickeningly sweet smell drifted into her nose on her next harsh inhale. Her diaphragm contracted, but a second later she recognized the smell.
Roses.
Another breath brought even more of that smell into her lungs. She could taste it on her tongue now. Could feel its lugubrious promise slide down her throat with insidious intent.
Another contraction. Had her jaw not been clenched so tight, her teeth would have been chattering. As it was, she had a death grip on her own arms, her nails digging half-moons into her goosebumped skin.
“Always gotta make sure they’re clean,” the man rasped to himself. “Won’t do bringing them a scruffy lass, innit?”
Fingertips touched her scalp.
Pearl began to tremble. The man squeezed her between his thighs, as if trying to still her shivers. Fingers drove into her scalp, tugging her hair as he lathered that disgusting rose-scented shampoo onto her head.
“Yuh-You killed ‘em,” Pearl muttered through the prison of her jaw. Her head bobbed forward and back as he shampooed her hair with unrelenting fingers.
The man sniffed loudly and let out a brash laugh. “Morrison’s not like ‘em other minted wankers,” the man said. “He saw potential in us.” A cough, the pressure on Pearl’s head relenting briefly. “In me. Knew how good I’d be behind the camera. Hardest part’s getting these other tossers to piss off long enough for me to create my art. Thas what I call it, mind.”
His breath tickled her ear. “’Cos it’s art I create, innit. Fuckin’ masterpieces, each ‘n erry one of ‘em.”
Pearl’s eyes closed. “Gia.” The word was little more than a mournful whisper.
Another laugh, lower than the others. The man cleared his throat and rested the back of his sudsy hands on Pearl’s shoulders. She buckled under their weight, her chin latching into place between her knees.
“Christ, ‘ow she fucking blubbered, that one. Almost as much as Abby. Little thing had a pair of lungs on her, mind. Should of been in flicks, that one. She’d of made a brilliant actress.”
