by J. A. Huss
“What other night?” Jesus. Has he done this to me before?
He lets go of my hands, twirls me around again, and then pushes me up against the cold stone pedestal, repositioning his hands on either side of my head and boxing me in. I can smell the leather from his gloves. I can feel the beat of his heart as he presses his chest against mine. I can hear the soft in-and-out breath of air as he maintains control.
I could get away right now if I wanted. I could knee him in the balls, grab his head and bang it down on my knee, and run back into the maze, screaming for help.
The problem is, I stay right where he puts me.
His hand glides down the curve of my neck and then he plays with a wisp of hair that fell down. “Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“I didn’t fuck you last weekend, but I wanted to. I really, really wanted to.”
I push him back with a two-handed shove to his chest and slap his face. Hard. The crack of my hand against his cheek echoes, and a girl laughs from somewhere in the maze. “Don’t talk to me that way, asshole.”
He just smiles, even as a red handprint forms on his face. “Never say never.”
“And if you call me gun girl one more time—”
“You’ll what?” he challenges, staring down into my eyes with such a glare, I have to look away.
“Just tell me what you want,” I say. My heart is beating so fast now.
“I just did,” he whispers, leaning down into my neck and tickling me with his breath as his words travel across my skin. “I want to fuck you. And I want to do it right now. Before we go any further. Before I tell you anything else. Before you have a chance to change your mind.”
“You are some piece of work,” I say, dragging my eyes back to meet his. His gaze is so intense, it makes me want to hide. “You’re crazy if you think I’m even considering it.”
“You’re right. You’re not considering it. You’ve already agreed or you’d be out of here. You’d be running away as fast as your pretty feet could take you. You’d be screaming for those people in the maze to help you. You’d be gone, Molly Masters.”
He tugs the skirts of my dress up my thigh.
I swallow hard again, and a moan comes out of my mouth.
“Give in tonight, Molly. And I’ll give in tomorrow.”
“What’s that mean? Why do you have to talk in riddles? Just tell me what the fuck is going on.” My words come out as a hoarse whisper and I look at the ground. And I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t turning me on. This alpha shit. I should hate it. I should rail against it. Slap him again and walk off. Walk straight the fuck out of here with my head up.
But I can’t say that’s how I feel, because I don’t.
“Hold your skirts up and find out.”
I force myself to look up. His eyes are not bright with mischief. They are dark, and cold, and commanding. And his lips aren’t curled up in some playful smile. They are straight, slightly parted. And I can see his tongue doing a little dance inside his mouth, like he’s thinking very hard about something. His hand leaves the wall and he drops the soft fabric of my silk skirts so he can place both leather-clad palms on my cheeks. Gently. And this is the only gentle thing about him right now. Because he scares the fuck out of me.
“Do it,” he says, his mouth finding mine. His lips pressing into an unbreakable kiss. His hands caressing my skin. His body moving forward, his knee taking position between my legs. “Lift those skirts, Molly,” he says, his words tumbling against my tongue. “Let me slip my hand between your legs and play a little. Let’s have a good time tonight and forget that it’s all gonna come crashing down tomorrow.”
“I don’t—”
“Please,” he says. The word is so soft. So filled with longing, and regret, and emotion. It reminds me of that friend of his while we were dancing. His plea makes me want to obey. Against my will, I try to convince myself. But it’s a lie. There is something on the tip of my tongue. Like my brain has been keeping secrets and they’re about to explode out of me. So I reach down, grab a fistful of silk tulle and I give him what he needs.
Permission.
His mouth is suddenly hungry and crushing. His tongue dances inside me. One hand leaves my face and goes to his belt and I hike my skirts up even more, exposing the bare skin of my leg. The brisk air flows upward, making my pussy tingle with anticipation. His belt buckle drops away, and he tugs on his zipper just before he presses his hard cock against my hip.
I push forward, making him groan with the pressure against his hard-on. “Do it, then,” I whisper. “Just do it. Before someone comes.” The voices of other couples in the maze are louder, but there’s no way for me to tell how close they are to finding the center. Or finding me here, doing this with him.
He grabs my skirts, the sudden force enough to make me gasp with surprise, and then he reaches between my legs and pulls my panties aside, just enough to slip a gloved finger inside me. “Open your legs wider, Molly.”
Just hearing his gruff voice say my name sends my mind spinning. Why? Why is he making me feel this way?
But that thought disappears as soon as the pressure inside me turns to pleasure. I obey his last command like I’m that computer thing in his cave. Forced to do his bidding. At his beck and call and under his spell.
Just as that thought crosses my mind, his cock—full, and hard, and throbbing just like my pussy—replaces his finger and I moan. Loudly. “Oh, God.”
“Shhh.” He laughs. And that laugh twists the whole thing around from forbidden and terrifying to reckless and tantalizing.
“I want to fuck you in the open,” he says. “Right here under these spotlights. With all those high-society fucks two hundred feet away, oblivious to what’s coming. All paranoid and pathetic, wondering what we’re going to do next. And if you make noise, Molly, I’ll have to drag your trembling and aching body over into the shadows and that would ruin everything.”
“Oh, God,” I say again.
“You don’t want me to ruin everything, do you?”
I shake my head as I stare up into his eyes. He grips my waist like he never wants to let go. He rocks against me, pressing me so hard up against the cold pedestal, I can feel the roughness of the stones embedded in the concrete.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he says, fisting my hair with one hand until my head jerks up. “And look at me when I fuck you.”
I lift my leg and his other hand is there helping. I wrap myself up against the hard, defined muscles of his stomach and around his hips just as he thrusts inside me.
“Fuck,” he growls, biting my earlobe. “They’re getting closer. Two more right turns and they’re gonna find us. And if you think I’ll stop, you don’t know me very well. So come for me, Molly. Come for me and say my name in my ear as you do it.”
“What—”
“Lincoln,” he whispers. “My name is Lincoln. Say it. I need to hear you say it.”
He pounds against me. A hand finds my breast, squeezing it like we are on the verge of something. His mouth finds my neck, and he takes the soft skin between his teeth and gives it a sharp nip. I gasp and he releases, sucking replacing the bite, until I have to give in and just let it happen.
I moan his name in his ear. “Lincoln,” I say.
“Again,” he commands. “Say it again.”
“Lincoln,” I breathe. “I’m coming.”
“Again,” he says, over and over. “I want to do this again.”
“Oh, shit,” I say, waves of pleasure rolling through my body like a tsunami. My back arches, my head pushing against the hard concrete behind me, his hands roaming all over my body, like he’s desperate for more.
He pulls out, just as I realize he never got off.
“But—”
“They’re here. Ten steps away,” he says, dropping my skirts and backing off. I want to cling to him now. Cling and never let go.
But he tucks his cock away and buckles his belt as he makes a hasty backwards retreat. “Go
that way,” he says, pointing to an opening in the hedge. “Right, left, two rights, and then two lefts. Find me, gun girl. I have a lot to tell you.” He turns, then turns back, grabs me by the waist and pulls me into his chest. “And Molly,” he says, his soft words and his intense stare doing amazing things to my still trembling body. “When you find me, Molly”—he hesitates and draws in a breath—“when you really find me, I’ll dress you up in pretty lingerie every night and fuck you senseless until the end comes and takes you away.”
I feel like I might faint.
He releases me and takes off into the shadows.
The laughing couples make it into the center, but they are on the other side of the statue, so I slip into the hedge the way he pointed.
I run on the stone pavers, lifting my skirts, my lungs desperate for air as my heart pounds with each footfall. After a few minutes I find myself on the far side of the maze.
I gulp down air, wondering what the fuck just happened. And then I make myself walk slowly so I can catch my breath. Try to process. Come to terms with what I did.
I look for him out in the courtyard in front of the maze, but he’s nowhere to be found. Not inside either, after I climb the stairs and rejoin the party. I’m just about to go find Seville and tell him to take over so I can go home, because I feel like I might collapse, when I spy Atticus Montgomery. He’s been looking for me, I can tell by his expression. He smiles and walks over, his hand outstretched.
Pull yourself together, Molly.
“Detective Masters. For a while there I thought you ditched me.”
“No, sorry,” I say, placing my hand over my still pounding heart. “I was out in the maze and got turned around.”
“Ah,” he says, eyeing me for a moment. “Well, let me calm you down with a drink. Come.” He takes my hand and leads me over to the bar where there are tables set up. “I have something to show you.”
It seems to be a recurring theme. But I let him lead me. The alpha males of Cathedral City have definitely overpowered me tonight. And I don’t have a speck of fight left in me at the moment.
Once we’re settled with drinks, Atticus leans in and says, “There’s another clue I didn’t give you.”
“What?” I look around to see if anyone is listening. “What do you mean?”
“I found something on the desk of the first suicide and I didn’t want the wrong people to see it.”
“Define the wrong people,” I say, weary of riddles and unable to think straight.
He doesn’t answer that question, just pulls out a slip of paper and places it on the table between us.
“What is it?”
“A red letter A?” he says, as if unsure.
“Right. I can see that.” I look up at him. “But what’s it mean? Do you think it’s an unfinished anarchy sign? Like the symbol carved on the last body?”
Atticus smiles at me and it comes off a little sad. Like he’s disappointed in me for some reason. “I’m not sure,” he replies. “I didn’t think it meant anything when I took it. But I thought you should know.”
No Turning Back Now
No Turning Back Now
Chapter Eighteen - Lincoln
Molly. I think it was her name that started it.
“Lincoln?” Sheila asks outside my bedroom doorway. “Are you OK?”
It’s an obsession. I realize this.
“Did you meet with her?”
Unhealthy for sure. And not gonna end well.
“Lincoln?”
I’m lying naked on the end of the bed with only my black leather gloves on. I can smell her lust on them. My bare feet are kicked up on the headboard, my hands behind my neck, and I’m staring up at the cave ceiling. The lights are on but the darkness surrounds me. I can see Sheila in her holographic dress from the corner of my eye and picture the day I coded her image. That day I finally stumbled down the overgrown driveway and came to terms with what was left of my life before Prodigy School. That day when my vow to get even, no matter what it took, finally coalesced into action.
Sheila’s raw personality was the only thing I took from school besides the clothes I was wearing. I don’t know why I took her. She belonged to them and she wasn’t near as intelligent then as she is now, so she didn’t give one fuck about me or my motivations. She could’ve ruined everything and Case was beyond pissed when I told him about her. But she was the only inheritance I had aside from the charred remains of the house above the cave. And that connection was enough to risk it, I guess.
The trip inside the maze tonight brought back memories I never wanted in the first place. But it was definitely Molly’s name that started it.
“She was wearing a nightgown the last time I saw her, you know. I gave her a coat and some boots and I told her to run like hell before I killed her.”
“Lincoln?” Sheila repeats, a bit of sadness in her voice. When did she acquire so many different emotions? When I first loaded her down here in the lab she only had one. I’d have called it indifference, if pressed.
Now she has so many it’s hard to keep track.
They say humans only have six emotions, sometimes only four, depending on who you talk to. Happy, surprised, afraid, disgusted, angry, and sad. But those people never had to develop a computer language and program a machine to take the place of a mother.
I did. And I know there’s a lot more going on inside Sheila than those six things.
For one, those scientists left out confused. That’s what I am right now. Or maybe I’m conflicted?
Is Molly someone I want in my life? That’s confusion.
Should I let Molly in my life? That’s the conflict.
The answer to the first is yes and the second is no.
“Lincoln, talk to me.”
Everything about Molly points to danger for me. She’s a cop, I’m a criminal. She’s good and I’m bad. She’s the end and I’m the beginning.
“You have to—”
“It was a mistake,” I finally say. “It was a mistake to see her tonight.” I look over at Sheila and she’s frowning. “Before last weekend I was fine, you know? I was alone and I was fine with that. But now…” My words trail off.
“But now what?”
I shake my head. “Now I want her. Now I can’t imagine letting her go and the only answer to my problem is to push her away.”
“Stay home tonight. Don’t go back out. It’s too dangerous. You can’t keep this up.”
I let out a long sigh, and then bark, “Lights out.” The room goes dark, only the ambient light from the computers and aquarium tank in the main cave leaking in to spoil the blackness. “I won’t push her away. But it’s the wrong decision, Sheila. I can feel it in my bones. My luck ran out when I wasn’t looking. I thought it was luck that got me out of that crash last week, but it wasn’t. It was life catching up to me. It was my past, my present, and my future all rolled up into ten minutes on a mountain road with Molly Masters.”
That’s all it takes. A few minutes with a girl I care about. One girl who means something to me. One girl who will bring up all the things I’ve been pushing down.
“It’s over, I guess. But I had a good run.”
The next time I look over at the doorway Sheila is gone.
But my dark thoughts are still here. And there are names etched into my memories that come out to play in the night. I recite them in my mind as I get up off the bed and start tugging on my jeans and boots. I slip a t-shirt over my head and then shrug on the hoodie.
Detective Molly Masters is on to me. I can feel it. She’s on to me and she’s gonna find me again and ask lots of questions. So why not get one more in before she comes? Why not take one more pathetic piece of shit down before I am stopped?
Why not?
I walk out of my room and spy my leather jacket hanging off the back of a chair, the red symbol on the sleeve practically calling my name through the green glow of digital haze.
I slip my arms in the sleeves and become Cathedr
al City’s worst nightmare.
I am mayhem, I am anarchy, and I am found.
But most of all, I am Alpha.
Chapter Nineteen - Molly
I’m standing in my garage trying to put the final pieces together. Find me, Lincoln commanded. And this should not be so hard. I’m a detective, for Christ’s sake.
Last night’s clue from Atticus has left me drained and I can’t think straight. It has to be part of the anarchy symbol. But why leave it unfinished?
My head hurts.
I also stopped by headquarters last night to pick up a fingerprint kit and I was up until four AM dusting things in my house.
No luck. Because I cleaned up after him. I bleached the hell out of this place. Wiped every smudge on every surface. Which means even if I wanted to arrest him—and I’m not sure I can after letting him publicly fuck me last night during the party—I have no evidence.
Yet. But if I can find him, I might get some.
I let out a long breath of air as I study my brother’s trailer and then I walk around to the back door, unlatch the locks, and pull them open.
Will’s bikes are state-of-the-art. His buddy down at the track has been taking care of them. Even raced them a couple times, he said. But he felt bad using them to win and just kept them in good working order until I was ready to pick them up and move on.
Which was supposed to be last weekend, but here they still are.
I have no prints. No last name.
I could go looking in the criminal database for Lincoln’s face, but that would arouse suspicion.
So? You should be shouting it out to everyone, Molly. Telling anyone who will listen there is a creepy pervert on the loose who lives in a Batcave up in the mountains.
But just thinking about that makes my stomach feel funny.
He intrigues me, sure. I have some personal fantasies that might involve his face between my legs and his hard chest crushing me to a bed.
But he planted a seed last night. Give in tonight, Molly. And I’ll give in tomorrow.
I shove a helmet on my head, walk into the trailer, release the ties that secure the street-legal bike to the walls of the trailer, then back it down the ramp and get on.