by B. B. Hamel
Outside, somewhere in the dark, lurking in the trees, a murderer wanted to take me.
Instead, I shifted to the side of my bed, making room. Nick didn’t hesitate. He pushed the sheets aside and looked at me, his eyes moving up along my legs. I felt a shiver on my spine that followed his gaze: my stomach, my breasts, my throat, my lips. Wordless, he got into bed next to me and wrapped his arms around my body. I let out a breath, half-moan, half-gasp, at his warmth. I felt him against me, his lips moving to my neck, my ear.
“You didn’t have to wait up,” he said.
“Can’t sleep.”
“I know how I can help.” His hand moved up into my hair. “If you ask me to.”
“Help me.” I spoke the words as his grip tightened—almost too tight. He pulled back and I sucked in a breath. “Please, Nick. Help me.”
He kissed me then and I finally released the moan I’d been holding inside for so long. I shifted my weight and straddled him, back arched, nothing but my thin cotton panties and his boxer briefs separating us. I could feel his strong, hard shaft against my pulsing warmth, and I knew I was wet, god, I’d been wet for days. It was almost humiliating—if I didn’t also love it.
He bit my lip as his other hand grabbed my ass. I needed his touch to be filthy, unrestrained and wild, in opposition to everything else around us. I felt like my days were structured, restricted, controlled, and muted in ways I never agreed to, all because of the monster outside, but Nick could make me forget that, he could give me something completely new. He could make me feel like I was living instead of running and hiding.
I rolled my hips, grinding down against him as his tongue met mine. We kissed hard, and I refused to let myself get bogged down in details, particulars. There was only Nick, and pleasure, and the feeling that our bodies were here in this room together, and everything else was far away. Some distant voice wondered if CGK would know we slept together: I didn’t much care.
Nick pulled my top off. I wasn’t wearing a bra. He kissed my chest, my nipples, then rolled me over onto my back. He pinned my wrists up and I marveled at his strength. He knelt back and took off his shirt, tossing it aside. He had tattoos, which surprised me. He licked my nipples again, bit them, made them stiff before palming my breasts and kissing me, a knee between my legs. I rolled my hips against it, desperate for anything.
One hand held me down while the other slipped down beneath my panties.
I took short, gasping breaths.
“Every night I lie down and think about this,” he said as he slid his fingers inside then back out again, teasing me, rolling in delightful, incredible circles. I let out more whimpers, pushing back against his grip, grinding myself into it. “You’re more gorgeous than I could’ve guessed. Look at you, Rose. Even the way you moan drives me wild.”
I couldn’t help myself. I gave him what he wanted, because it was what I wanted. Each new stroke made me gasp anew. His lips found mine again as he moved his hand faster. I managed to slip one wrist from his grip and dug my nails into his back before moving it down between his legs. I found his shaft, long and hard and stiff, and stroked him, wild and stupid and free, feeling only pleasure, and wanting more of it.
He stripped off my panties, made me bare. He looked at me like he wanted to study my skin, every inch of my curves there for him to enjoy. He kissed my thighs, my hipbones, my collar, my arms. He kissed my nipples, and, yes, god, down between my legs, he kissed me there, too, he licked me, lapped me up. I felt it, god, I felt it, which was so much more than I could say about anything else in my life.
When he took off his boxer briefs then spread me wide, my only thought was, how can I get more? I was greedy, so greedy, but I could afford to be with him. He slid inside me, and I gasped his name. Yes, god, that was how, that was exactly how.
He took me then. I bit down against his shoulder, dug my fingers into his back. I felt his muscles, marveled at his tattoos, tasted his lips. I felt sweat on my skin and time lost meaning, all definitions gone, language forgotten and lost. There was only him, and my breaths, my moans, and the pleasure he gave me.
I rode him, arching my back as he cupped my breasts. I let him bite my nipples, let him slap my ass. The pain woke me up even more, made the pleasure so much sweeter, and the bed shook and squeaked as sweat rolled down my skin in beads. He licked that up, too, and kissed me afterwards. I tasted salt on his tongue and when he pulled my hair, a tight grip on my hips, I bore down and gasped as pleasure wracked me in waves.
I came on top, and came again later, when he turned me around and took me from behind. It was how exposed I felt, my legs spread, my ass in the air, and the way he told me how beautiful I looked. “You taste as good as you look, too,” he whispered in my ear, that filthy man. “You taste like honey. I want to lap you up. I could eat you for breakfast. I think I will.”
I shivered and came in wild bursts of pleasure and joy, and his responding growls only made the orgasm that much sweeter. He came inside me strokes later, in deep gushing spurts, and I felt every inch of him. I couldn’t believe how gratifying it was, and I collapsed onto the bed, spent and exhausted, feeling like I’d run a marathon.
He wrapped his big arms around me and pulled me up against his chest, his cock still hard and pulsing.
“Look at what you do to me,” he whispered.
“That’s not my fault.”
“Absolutely is. You think you can walk around here, looking the way you do, and I’m not going to notice? Tell me you’re not glad you stayed awake.”
“Not that I had much choice.” I kissed his chest, buzzing on the happiness. I knew it was temporary, and soon the real world would come crashing down—but in that moment I didn’t care. “Sleep hasn’t been easy.”
“I know.” He let out a breath and tilted my chin up. He kissed me and held me there. “It’s not going to be forever.”
“It could be. What if he runs and we don’t catch him? I’ll look over my shoulder forever.” I went to pull away from him, suddenly cold, but he held me tight.
“Don’t think about that right now. I’m telling you, I won’t let that happen.”
“I want to believe you.”
His eyes practically burned into mine. “Then do it. Believe me. Put down your guards and trust me.”
“Guards?” I laughed a little, not sure what he meant, and sat up on one arm. His eyes moved down my body, and I felt a strange warmth in my chest. I liked that he still wanted to look at me, even minutes after we’d just had sex. “I don’t have any of those.”
“You have walls miles thick.”
“Yeah, right. What’s any of that matter to you? I’m sure you’ve got a profile of me already.”
“No,” he said seriously. “I wouldn’t do that to someone I care about.”
“You care about me now?”
“Of course I do.” His eyebrows knitted together. “Why would you think I didn’t?”
“I’m nobody to you.” I slipped away from him, feeling the pressure return, that anxiety-buzz. I knew I was being irrational—I saw the way he looked at me, I felt the way he took me and kissed me—and yet I couldn’t help myself. It was always there, the invisible knowledge that this could all end in violent and gruesome moments, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Except for give myself to Nick.
I got dressed while he watched.
“I understand why you feel that way,” he said, “but it’s not true.”
“Why not? Why would I matter more than anyone else?”
“Because you’re here and you’re a good person. There are so few people in this world that would do what you’re doing for your sister.” He sat up, pulled his boxer briefs back on, then leaned against the bed, watching me. “I’ve surrounded myself with dead girls for a long time, and I’m sick of them. None of them matter, not like you do.”
“Oh, good. Just because I have a pulse.”
He clenched his jaw. “It’s more than that and you know it.
”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get myself under control. “I know,” I said. “I’m just on edge.”
“I am too,” he said. “But you’re important to me. These past few days, getting to know you, they’ve been the best days I’ve had in a long time, ever since I joined the Hunters. Maybe even before.”
I watched him as he gracefully picked up his shirt and pulled it back on. I knew he wasn’t lying to me—I didn’t think he’d lie to me, if he had any other choice.
“Come into bed with me,” I said, the words barely a whisper.
He didn’t say anything, only get back under the covers. I slipped in beside him, and he wrapped himself around me, holding me tight. I felt my panic subside, and realized that’s what it was: panic, pure and simple. My emotions had been suppressed temporarily, set aside through sex and orgasm, and they overwhelmed me when they came crashing back.
That night, lying together in that bed, I had the feeling that we were adrift at sea together, the bed rocking and rolling over ink black waves, and something was beneath us deep down in the dark, watching and waiting for the right moment to open its jaws—and bite.
15
Nick
I let Rose sleep late. The look on her face as she stood beside the bed still haunted me: pure fear, unfiltered, distilled into its purest form.
I understood what she was going through. I went through something like it when Buck died, except her experience is more direct. Back then, I thought I was next. I was almost convinced of it. Every night I’d go to bed and say my prayers, If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take, and every morning I’d open my eyes, surprised to see the rocket ship wallpaper. Buck was still gone, of course, and I knew he was never coming back, but a part of me wondered if I could join him, wherever he’d gone—and if maybe that would be better.
That feeling never left, not completely. It was replaced with anger as I got older and came to fully understand what Buck’s death meant to my family, how it had broken my parents and shattered my sense of safety, my childlike innocence.
Rose was going through something like that. Except in her case, the boogeyman that lived under my bed and threatened each night to draw me down into his hell was real, and he was outside her house, waiting to come in.
I made coffee and breakfast. I had to resist the urge to go stomping through the woods, looking for CGK. That wouldn’t do a damn thing and I knew it, but it might make me feel like I was doing something proactive. So far, I’d been waiting around, protecting Rose, hoping that CGK would make a mistake and show himself. Instead, he stalked from the distanced, played his little games—and fucked with our heads.
She came down dressed in sweats with her hair piled on top of her head. “Morning,” she said, eyes bleary, and poured some coffee.
“Morning.” I thought of her hips bearing down on me, the way she moaned, the way she came as I took her—
“What’s on the agenda today?” She sipped from her mug and smiled a little.
I smiled back, happy that she seemed like she’d gotten past her panic attack from the night before.
“Not sure,” I admitted. “Grocery shopping. Maybe some skinny-dipping in the local ponds. Whatever you want.”
She rolled her eyes, and was about to make some witty retort when the doorbell rang.
We both froze. I looked at her. “Expecting anyone?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nobody.”
I pulled the gun from my waistband and went to look through the front window. I groaned and put the gun away when I saw Cal standing there, an annoyed scowl on his face.
I opened the door. “What are you doing here, partner?”
He held up a folder. “Do you have any fucking idea how much work you made for me?” He stormed inside without being asked. “Hello, Rose.”
“Hi, Cal.”
I shut the door as he sat at the table and slammed the folder down. “This shit, Nick, I swear. You’re giving me bullshit busywork.”
“Not sure what you mean,” I said sweetly.
He glared at me. I saw bags under his eyes and knew what this was about. “I was up all fucking night compiling your list.”
“You know about Starch?”
He waved it off. “CGK won’t hurt her. Do you have any clue how many girls stream in the city?”
“I can guess,” Rose said. “Fifty?”
“One hundred and twelve that we found.” He jabbed a finger at the folder. “One hundred and fucking twelve.”
“That’s a lot,” Rose said. “Are you sure it’s that many? I’m sort of surprised. But I guess Philly has a pretty big population.”
“Did you drive all the way out here just to complain?” I asked, joining him at the table.
“No,” he said, glaring at me. “A little bit, but no.”
“Great,” I said, reaching out for the folder. He shoved it to me and I flipped through, noting faces and names, skimming over details. “You’ve got good stuff in here.”
“It’s a needle in a goddamn haystack,” he said. “One hundred and twelve girls, and that’s all the Hunters could pull up. Head had his little team on it all night, and I was pinging back and forth with them through secure lines until about an hour ago.”
“Which is when you decided to come pay us a visit, I assume,” I said. “If the office team was doing all the work, why’d you have to be involved?”
“Too high of an error rate. I had to manually approve each new addition. It was goddamn torture.” He stood and paced then pointed at the coffee. “May I get some?”
“Help yourself,” Rose said. She leaned down to peer over my shoulder. “So many girls. I honestly can’t imagine doing something like this.”
“Really? You’d be popular.” I kept flipping through: Nany, twenty-two, dark eyes and long hair, played piano and sang and fucked herself with a big purple dildo; Alisha, twenty-eight, wore latex and whipped herself with a very expensive flogging machine; Debbie, age unknown, foot fetish.
“I don’t think I have the personality for it.”
“That’s definitely not true. And you more than have the looks.”
She swatted my arm. “Not the point. I don’t have the confidence, you know? All those eyes watching.”
“You’d be surprised how easy it could be,” I murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t see the guys, just their text. You know they’re out there, of course, and you get validation in the form of compliments and money, but you don’t see their faces. There’s no stage, no real audience to speak of. I’m willing to bet it’s a lot lonelier than you’d think.”
She was quiet then and I looked up. She looked sad, and I knew what she was thinking: her sister was one of these girls once, a sad, lonely girl, successful at making strangers pay her money to take off her clothes, but still alone in her room. That was how she’d died, with nobody around, not really—even if her camera had been on, there’d have been nobody.
“I think it’s time we end this bullshit.” Cal’s voice broke the heavy moment. “What do you say? Send Rose somewhere safe and call in the cavalry.”
“Not yet.”
Cal stormed back over and sat down. “I’m tired of waiting. He’s here in this little town. If we get twenty guys from the office, fifty even, and flood the damn place, we’ll get him.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. “He’s smart. He’ll see that from a mile away.”
“Nick’s right,” Rose said. “I’m not interested in stopping now. We’ve come too far.” She held her hand out. “Do you mind?”
“Be my guest.” I handed her the folder then turned to Cal. “Any likely victims in there? Anyone jump out at you?”
“A few,” he said. “Put them up front. You know me, can’t help myself, even if I think this operation’s a bust.”
I got a bad feeling. “Did you tell that to Head?”
He looked away, confirming my worst fears. “It’s not li
ke that.”
“Cal, come on.”
“You’re in too deep in this.” His voice was rough as he glared at me. “You know I wasn’t all-in from the start. I let you go along because you’re smart and you’re quick, but this little—” He waved at Rose. “This situation is fucked and you know it.”
Rose walked a few feet away, ignoring our conversation. I felt my anger rise and I forced myself to keep it together.
“I understand it’s taking longer than we hoped.”
“Way longer. Every day we spend here is more money the bureau has to shell out. And in the end, it’s going to come to nothing. Each hour means the likelihood of getting our guy plummets a little bit more.”
“What did Head say when you went behind my back?”
He glared at me for several beats, then looked away. That meant it hadn’t gone well for him. “Head’s not here.”
“He thinks I should be left alone, doesn’t he?”
“Head hasn’t been out of his office in a long damn time. I’m not sure I’m ready to trust his opinion on this.”
I clenched my jaw. “And yet his opinion means more than yours does.” I leaned toward him. “The operation continues.”
“If you get someone killed—” He stared at me, his own anger matching my feelings.
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t say it.”
He stopped himself, and we hung there suspended over an abyss. I knew what he wanted to say—that any more dead bodies were on me, they were my fault, but that was bullshit. I was deep in this hole, he was right about that, so deep I couldn’t see the top anymore. But I was risking my own life here, doing everything I could to catch this bastard, and whatever he thought about my methods, he couldn’t begin to understand them or rightfully suggest that I had a hand in anyone getting hurt.
“Guys?” Rose’s voice sliced across the tension, cutting the moment at the knees. “I think I see something.”