The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  She held still, like a stunned animal, allowing a cunning predator to pump its poison into her. Anesthetizing her into a state of unwitting bliss, confirmed by the licentious purr in her throat that cast a tremor down my spine.

  I pulled out and slid the sagging condom from my dick, and tossed it into the trash. Not sparing a second, I swiped her feet out from under her, lifting her into my arms, and carried her to the bed, where I set her down on the mattress.

  As Nicoleta slinked toward the other side of it, I yanked her back and crawled in beside her, holding her tight against me, wanting her to curl into me like a little kitten, just as she had earlier.

  “Dax, let me go. I don’t do the cuddling stuff.”

  “Too bad. I do.”

  She pushed at my arms, but I wrapped them tighter around her and trapped her between my legs, holding her against my ragged-out body. “I can’t do this! Please.”

  “Relax, Nicoleta. I’m not going to hurt you, or make you do some depraved bullshit. You’ve been programmed to guard yourself, but you don’t have to do that with me.”

  “I’m … I don’t … affection isn’t my thing.”

  “Not mine, either. But it’s different with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Just is.” Because she didn’t ask for it, and because of that, she probably needed it more than other women I’d been with.

  Something about her made me want to take care of her. Protect her. Yeah, she was strong and could do some damage with a blade, but she was fragile at the same time. A raging flame trapped inside a porcelain shell. One that could crack if pushed too far over the edge.

  I held her tighter and kissed her damp shoulder. “Get some rest. I’m not done with you yet, woman.”

  On a huff, she stilled against me and chuckled. “I opened the floodgates, didn’t I?”

  Maybe she had. Maybe all the crazy shit building inside of me was my body’s attempt to get it out of my system. To fuck her until I’d had my fill, until I was so glutton on her body that I couldn’t stand to take another piece of her. I’d unwittingly done that a number of times, with a number of other women—allowing myself to tire of them by filling my cup over and over, until I could no longer stomach the taste.

  Perhaps that was the key to letting her go in the end. After all, I’d long planned to go after Tesarik, and if the rumors were true about his enemies, then I’d be looking at a one-way ticket. My penance, for all the times I’d screwed women over in my life, or just hadn’t been there for them, as was the case with my sister Lizzie, and my own mother.

  I knew better than that, though. I’d never get sick of Nicoleta, evident in the way my body had already begun to harden for her. I cared too much about her to take my fill and push her away. Felt too damn good having her in my arms, her small body curled into mine.

  “You did.” I smiled against her skin, inhaling her mouthwatering scent and closed my eyes, pretending she was mine and the whole rest of the fucking world didn’t exist.

  26

  Nicoleta

  An hour must’ve passed before my muscles unspooled, my chest loosened its crushing grip on my lungs, and my head was forced to relent the possibility that Dax had any intentions of letting me go. I blamed the incessant effects of my addiction, that voracious craving for touch, for trampling the natural instincts to protect my heart by pushing away. A maddening battle between body and mind.

  Perhaps the only way I could be persuaded to lie next to a man after sex.

  He was right: I had been programmed. Trained to keep the drugs pumping through me by ignoring my instincts. Those minutes that followed orgasm, particularly mine, had always been reserved for the punishing waves of guilt and remorse that’d always pummeled through me afterward. But the euphoria brought on by something so simple as touch had made it almost sickening. The times I’d climaxed while on Hedonic had always been the worst, because I’d been so willing, so eager, just to score my next pill. Like a dog primed to please its master.

  Something had shifted, though. Dax had supped from me, no doubt, indulging as greedily as I had, but not in a way that left me chiding myself, feeling cheap and used. In fact, my body craved more of his attention, more of his touch. And yet, my instincts warned me to proceed cautiously. He’d left me in muscle-cramping pleasure, unlike anything I’d experienced before, and though my guilt had grown weaker, I could still feel it in the shadows, waiting to swoop down and destroy my momentary bliss.

  Seemed any time within the last hour I’d begun to fall into those destructive thoughts, though, Dax had distracted me with conversation, a gentle stroke, or a kiss, heightening my desire to be near him, while teaching my brain to trust him.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Head resting against his chest, I watched his large, scarred hand swallow mine as he threaded his fingers between my knuckles. The heady scent of sex still clung to the air, tamped down by the spicy bergamot radiating from his warm skin.

  “Sure.”

  “Why …. Who are the men you chat with?”

  “Come again?” His body shifted beneath mine, and though I couldn’t see him from my angle, I knew he was staring down at me.

  “On your phone. I saw the …. One of the messages popped up. It was vibrating in the drawer, so I looked. What’s that all about?”

  He snorted and stroked a hand across my hair, easing back against the pillow. “I like to pretend to be a child and fuck older men.”

  Face undoubtedly reflecting my sudden confusion, I lifted my head from his chest, relieved to see his lips stretched into a smile that squinted his eyes.

  “I’m playin’.” The smile withered to something more serious, and he cast his gaze away from mine. “So I have a profile on this site that says I’m a twelve, or thirteen, year old. These guys, they message me. Friendly at first, but then it doesn’t take long to turn sexual. I play along, letting them send me dick pics and nasty fantasies, until we eventually plan to meet up.” He ran his fingertip down my shoulder, pebbling my skin with goosebumps. “Usually somewhere obscure, like a parking lot, or a strip mall closed down for the night. They show up all surprised to see a grown ass man, instead of a skinny, defenseless kid.” His chest rose up beneath me, exhaling quickly on a slight chuckle. “And that’s when I usually beat the ever-loving fuck out of them.”

  “So, you hunt them?”

  “I’ve not killed anyone. Yet. Wanted to, but I don’t. They don’t leave in good condition, though. Some can’t even drive after.” He shrugged, still circling his finger over my collarbone to my shoulder. “That’s what happens when you make plans to have sex with a child. You get fucked up by some crazy ass vigilante who hates pedophiles.”

  Maybe I’d grown cynical and twisted, but the thought of him doing that sent an erotic chill up my spine. “If there were more people like you in the world, maybe there wouldn’t be any Tesariks, or Jaspers. Maybe they’d feel more like prey, instead of the predators.”

  He snorted again, lifting me as he sat up on the bed. “Not according to my therapist. She says I’m just making them go into hiding. They’re missing out on an opportunity to get the help they need and heal.” From the nightstand, he nabbed a small bag of weed, taking out a good-sized chunk of it, which he separated out on the surface. He stuffed it into a metal tin, rotating it back and forth, and unfastened the lid on the shavings inside. Opening the end of a glass cylinder, he packed the weed inside and twisted in the half that held grooves, like an enormous screw. Back and forth until it filled the ridges inside. “The fuck am I supposed to do? Tell ‘em they’re better than that and send ‘em on their merry little way? Sit back and watch them pick up on some other unsuspecting kid who could end up dead? Fuck that. It’s fucking chemical.” He paused to tap his temple, keeping his attention on the task of filling what looked like a blunt made of glass. “In their brains. You can’t undo that shit. They see kids as sex objects, and nothing’s going to change that. No therapy in the world can alter brain chemistry.” Set
ting his lighter to the end of it, he puffed on the mouthpiece twice, until the end burned orange and a skunky scent filled the air. Thick, white curls drifted out of his mouth, and he sucked it back in, holding it in his lungs before blowing it out his nose.

  Hypnotizing, the way he smoked.

  I stayed propped on my elbow, until he settled back beside me with his back pressed to the wall, and I snuggled into his side again. “You’re passionate about this. What brought it on?”

  Another hit of his blunt, and he handed it to me. “Ah, you don’t want to open that door, Nic.”

  I’d only smoked weed once in my life. Found a joint left out after one of my mom’s parties that I mistook as a cigarette, and I’d snuck out behind the shed to smoke it. Only took one hit for me to realize I’d gotten it wrong, and I spent the whole night tripping out on thoughts that the neighbors dog had been watching me like a spy, while laughing my ass off over it.

  “Why? What’s behind it?” One long inhale, and my chest damn near crackled as the smoke infiltrated my lungs. Nothing like cigarettes. I coughed out puffs of smoke, handing it back to him.

  “Lot of fucked up shit. Fucked up shit.”

  “Try me.”

  “Look, you see me as I want you to see me. But I had a moment in my life when I wasn’t what you see. I was defenseless. Weak.” Frowning, he set the blunt to his lips again.

  “And you don’t think I’d understand that feeling?” Getting hooked on Hedonic hadn’t been part of my plan when I decided to infiltrate Tesarik’s group.

  “Goddamn, you don’t give up for anything, do you?” On a sigh, his jaw shifted, and he flipped the Zippo at the end of the pipe to relight it, inhaling again. A couple more hits, and he sniffed, glancing over at me then back to somewhere toward the end of the bed. “So, I was eleven years old, and we lived about four blocks from the middle school. I used to walk it everyday. To and from school. One day, this guy pulls up alongside me. Flashes me a police badge and says he’s an investigator for the Detroit Police Department.” He shook his head, drawing his knee up, where he rested his elbow. “Honestly, my first instinct was to run like hell, but I didn’t. In retrospect, I wish I’d gone with my instincts. Anyway, he told me my mom had overdosed, and he was going to drive me to the hospital. All sounded legit, ya know? I mean, looking back, motherfucker must’ve watched us for months to know my mom was a junkie.” His lips flattened, brows pinching together again, as they did when something was about to get serious with him. “So I get in the car, and I notice the lock on the passenger seat is broken. It clicked when he locked it, but there was no way to manually unlock it. There was no button on my side, either.”

  As his hands gestured in the air, a warm fuzziness settled over me, calming my muscles in spite of the anxiety his words brought to mind. “Anyway, he’s driving opposite to downtown, and I’m watching hospital signs pass, saying it’s in the other direction. You’re going the wrong way, man! We end up parked behind this rundown housing project, a real shithole. That’s when he pulls out a gun and tells me he doesn’t have to hurt me, as long as I do as he says.”

  His gaze fell away, and even through the high taking over my senses, my heart sank at what I anticipated would come next.

  “The guy tells me to get out of the car, so I do, and as he’s holding the gun to my temple, he tells me to drop my pants and put my hands on the hood.” Dax thumbed at his nose before clearing his throat, and I could feel my heart pounding against my chest, beating inside my ears to the nervous rhythm. “So I did. He kept that gun to my head the whole fucking time. Must’ve taken maybe three minutes, max.” He puffed his blunt again, holding the smoke in his lungs as he twisted the cylinder around, studying the end of it, then exhaled. “I just went numb. All I could think about was how the bullet would feel if he accidentally shot it. Wondered if I’d even feel anything.” Dax shook his head. “Motherfucker drove me home after, as if he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. And I didn’t. Not until I got older. I kept that shit bottled inside of me for years. And anyone who even came close to doing me wrong after that got the business end of my fist.”

  Any other woman might’ve wrapped her arms around him, probably cried for him. But I knew from my own experiences crying would only make him feel weaker. Instead, I kissed his chest, over his heart. It made sense to me right then, why he’d risk his life to find me. My abduction was another injustice to him. Another predator staking claim on a defenseless lamb. “I’m sorry this happened to you. Trying to survive a bad situation isn’t weakness.”

  “Story doesn’t even bother me anymore. Too many therapists trying to crack into my head, trying to justify what I do. Like I need a reason to seek out these sick fucks.” His tongue swept over his lips, leaving a wet shine across them. “Maybe I’ve just become the stronger species. Every bastard I meet up with is one less kid who has to live with that shit. Yet, people like this therapist think that I’m the bad guy.” Pipe still dangling from his fingertips, he prodded his thumb against his chest. “I’m the one messing with the food chain. Even if the cops wanted to track these assholes down, their hands are tied. These depraved little pricks get nothing but a slap on the wrist. Ones who’re out to fuck kids, but I’m the bad guy for finding them first.”

  “People will misjudge you. But don’t let them change who you are.” The words echoed in my head with a staggering familiarity, and I screwed my eyes shut to will away the surfacing memory.

  With a chuffed laugh, he shook his head. “You should write fortune cookies, you know that? Seriously. That’s like … the best advice I’ve ever been given.” He patted my thigh, setting the blunt down on the nightstand. “C’mon. Get dressed. I need to show you something.”

  It baffled me the way Dax could so easily distract me from my thoughts. For so many years, I’d struggled with the cyclical nature of them, a never-ending loop of falling, trapped inside my own memories and nightmares. The mere sound of his voice peeled me out of an emotional hurricane brewing inside my head.

  “What do you need to show me?” I asked him.

  With his tight butt mere inches from my face as he stood from the bed, he glanced over his shoulder. “Just get your ass dressed.”

  * * *

  Wind whipped through my hair as I stepped out onto the rooftop of Book Tower, the lightheadedness from the weed giving way to the view ahead.

  I’d always felt like I had a pretty good handle when faced with terrifying moments, but staring off at the never-ending horizon had me questioning my experiences up until that point.

  The sun had begun to set over the west side of the city, making its slow descent into the shadows of nearby buildings. My heart thumped an unnatural rhythm as I scanned over the tops of buildings below us, ones considered some of the city’s most notable skyscrapers.

  Dax leaped onto the parapet, sending my heart rushing up into my throat.

  “What are you doing?” The nervous wobble in my voice exposed the fear hammering through my veins.

  “Ten years of therapy. Fights. Medications. All I had to do was come up here for everything to make sense again.”

  “You’re not going to jump, are you? ‘Cause I’m not going after you, if you do.”

  His chuckle sounded deeper than before, raspier. “I’ve found myself a number of reasons not to jump, as of late.” He hopped down from the edge, sending my heartrate back to normal, and strode across the gravel toward me. “So, that thing I wanted to show you … you gotta promise to hold very still and keep your eyes toward the sunset. No matter what.”

  “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “You will.” But his eyes and the bewitching grin that stretched across his face told me I was in deep shit, whatever he had in mind. “You’ll do as I say, yeah?”

  “You’re not going to throw me over the edge?”

  “Ah, I don’t know if I can answer that, but I promise you’ll enjoy every minute of it.” Hands planted against my ass, he backed me into the wall and lay t
he kind of kiss that left me weak in the knees on my lips—the kind that made it hard to say no. The soft, but demanding kind, with his tongue in my mouth and a rumble in his chest, telling me he was ravenous for something.

  He dragged my bottom lip between his teeth, the possession in his movements rendering me unsteady, stunned by the aftereffects. “Will you trust me?” he asked.

  In the seconds that followed, my mind teased out the complicated equation of instinct over experience, adding a new variable to the mix: the unknown. “Okay.”

  At that, his eyes lit up like a kid at a candy buffet. The cold stonewall scraped across my palms, as Dax positioned my hands flat at either side of me. “You keep your hands to your side at all times.” He stood in front of me, shadowing me, and leaned in to my ear. “I want you to watch that sunset. Commit it to memory. And never once take your eyes off it. Hear?”

  “Where are you going?”

  No sooner had the question tumbled from my lips than Dax dropped down to his knees in front of me, his eyes rapt on mine during the chore of unbuttoning my jeans. Cool air hit my thighs, as he tugged them and my panties down to my shins and shifted his gaze to my exposed half.

  “Wait.” I set my hand on his shoulder, which he promptly flattened against the wall once more without so much as looking up at me.

  “Keep your hands on the wall, and your eyes on the sunset.” The way his tongue swept across his lips reminded me of a wolf, and when he pressed his thumbs at either side of my pussy, putting my still-tender clit on display, I sucked in a sharp breath, ignoring at least half his directives.

  “I told you … I’m not … I don’t do foreplay.”

  “Well, it’s time you did. And if you don’t like it, you can tell me to stop. I promise I will.”