by Fox, Logan
What a lithe creature she is. I lean into her, teasing her with the tip of my cock as I brush my lips against her trembling mouth.
She releases the headboard and tries to grab my shoulders.
“I didn’t say you could let go.”
Her eyes fly open, blazing with righteous contempt. She releases her hold anyway, pushes at my chest.
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want,” she snaps.
She struggles furiously as if she wants to escape.
So I pin her with my body and drive my cock into her so there’s no chance of her getting free. Her mouth turns into a perfect circle, her eyes squeezing shut. She fumbles and grabs the headboard just before I pull out and thrust into her again.
The bed rattles against the wall.
Her cunt is so warm and wet around my dick that I can barely get myself to pull out. Instead, I try to burrow deeper, to find the end of her and know that I’ve claimed her entirely.
Clover mewls, and it’s the strangest sound I’ve ever heard. I rock against her, moving less than an inch each time.
She grabs my hair and pulls me in for a kiss that leaves us breathless. There’s copper in my mouth, but I drink it down with the taste of her, not caring.
The kiss breaks, but we still have our mouths together.
“Please,” she begs in a furious whisper. “I’m so fucking close, Hunter.”
“Fuck,” I murmur, trying to express how fucking hot those lips look forming my name.
“Harder. Please. I’m so close, Hunter. Harder!”
I dig my nails into her thigh in an effort to keep her legs fixed against my torso. The other had goes around her throat.
Her eyes flutter, and she lets out a long sigh.
Our foreheads are together again, our breath mingling as we race to the edge of a beckoning cliff. Midnight sky above, abyss below.
This doesn’t change anything.
This doesn’t change any fucking thing.
“Clover. Fuck!” I come inside her, thrusting so hard the bed rattles against the wall again. She groans, leaving furrows in my shoulders, but I don’t think she’s coming.
Another hard pound, another rattle of the bed, and I relax into her, panting against her calves as I press my lips to her skin.
She’s breathing hard too, but she tenses around me, milking me as I shudder at the final release of my orgasm.
It’s never mattered before, but I feel like I’ve failed.
I’m not a failure.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Clover
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should have come after getting such a pounding. Maybe it was the position—there was zero clit action with my legs up like this.
It was fucking delicious, but delicious doesn’t make for coming.
My legs slide down when Hunter releases me. He sits back on his heels.
I don’t like the look in his eyes. He’s pissed off—mouth a line, eyes flashing.
“Hunter?”
He grabs my legs, forces them open, and shoves his fingers inside me. I gasp, sitting up dead straight as a wave of furious pleasure crashes through me.
“You don’t have to—” I begin, but the sentence strangles itself in a gasp when he grinds the heel of his palm into my clit.
Fuck. Oh, sweet, fucking, Christ.
He shoves my legs wider apart as he glares at me as if daring me not to come.
Really, Hunter?
Challenge accepted.
I ride his fingers, bucking my hips in time with his furious arm pumps. But I’m also dislodging him from my clit, which means I’m not getting any closer to coming.
But he doesn’t realize this.
I’m smiling, and I think he’s wondering why because his anger is turning to confusion.
Maybe he thinks I’m broken. Ruined by years of sexual slavery at the hands of other rich men.
I laugh.
Something I already know he doesn’t like.
He yanks his hand away—much the pity—grabs my hips and turns me over so fast my head’s still spinning by the time I land on all fours.
What the fuck—?
His cock spears into me, and I yell out half in surprise and half in pleasure. Sweet Jesus, talk about short recovery time. What the fuck?
I’m still trying to get into position when he drives his hand between my shoulder-blades and forces my head into the mattress.
Now he’s fucking me like he wants to break me and doesn’t care if I tear apart and bleed all over his bed.
For some sick, twisted reason, the thought leaves flames over my psyche. I moan and gasp and writhe as much for air as to just make his life a living hell.
He grabs my neck, pinning me to the mattress as he folds over my back. We’re sweat-slick against each other—him grunting like a wild animal and me moaning like a wounded kitten.
Hunter uses his knee to push open my legs and wedges himself between them. He begins strumming my clit, and I shriek at him, furious that I can’t get away with my game any longer.
My struggles intensify, but he doesn’t respond to me scraping skin from his wrist.
So I clamp my fingers around his cock as hard as I can and begin to fuck him back.
I’m still far away from a climax, but him? I’m sure he’s—
“This hard enough for you?” comes his strained voice.
I shudder hard, and let out a spluttered, “As if.”
He loses rhythm, and I laugh hysterically because of it, which earns me a stinging slap to my rump.
Fuck. If this was a race, I just overtook him and the finish line’s in sight.
As if he can read my mind, he slaps me again.
Christ, I can’t—
He stops fucking me. Buried balls deep, he suddenly stops.
He’s coming again, isn’t he? I squirm, so close I want to start sobbing.
The vicious fingers over my clit begin stroking me instead, barely touching me.
Ah, fuck. My body trembles as I unsuccessfully suppress a deep groan. He draws out but an inch before sliding back inside me again. Again. Harder. Harder. But still just an inch.
I can’t even.
I moan his name, beg him to end me, start to struggle. He slaps me again.
Seconds later, when the furious tingling where he’s stroking my clit overwhelms all reason, I come with a hoarse yell.
He pulls out, thrusts back once, twice, and comes inside me again. I ride out an excruciating orgasm, gasping and writhing on his bed like I’m dying of cyanide poisoning.
He grabs my hair, wrenches my head up, and presses his lips to the side of my neck as he lets his weight slowly push me down.
He’s still inside me, pulsing. I bring a hand up to touch his face, to feel his jaw. It’s hard, his lips quivering. I twist my head for a kiss.
It’s as soft as the brush of a butterfly’s wing.
Seconds later, he rolls off me. I stay where I am, mentally and physically drained, and watch him move around his room. He takes a robe and throws it over his shoulders. Then he leaves without a word or a look in my direction.
Still panting, I roll onto my back. Slowly, I come up to my elbows.
I didn’t even have a chance to see his room.
It’s as immaculate as the rest of place.
Color catches my eye.
There’s a bright red hoody on a hanger on the outside of his dresser.
It’s too small for him.
My thundering heart does a strange galloping twist. I swallow hard and try to will myself to get off the bed before he comes back.
But my body is lame, my mind numb and useless.
He eclipses the doorway, pausing before coming closer. He has a glass of water in his hand and sets it down on the nightstand. Two white pills click onto the wood. “Sugar water and aspirin,” he says, sitting on the mattress beside me. “Take them. You won’t wake up with alcohol poisoning.”
I barely get a hand to my mouth in tim
e to cover a burst of laughter. “Alcohol poisoning?” I take the glass of water and pills, grinning at him over the rim. “I had like four drinks.”
Instead of replying, he moves a section of hair from my face with the side of his finger. His face is in shadow, and for some reason that disturbs me.
My eyes flash down to the pills cupped in my palm.
“I don’t want you to wake up with a headache.”
Oh really? How fucking dapper of you, Dr. Hunter. His finger trails the outer edge of my earlobe, and I shiver. I toss back the pills and swallow them down. I gag theatrically at the nasty tasting water.
He watches, head tilting slowly to the side. I expected a smile, even a small one, but I’m disappointed. I take another sip of water, rub my tummy, and let out a sarcastic, “Mmm!”
Still nothing. Crap, did I just fuck the sense of humor out of this man?
“You okay?” I ask, trying to make my voice light. I take another sip and move to put the glass down.
“What happened tonight doesn’t change anything,” he says, with the solemnity of a priest at a gravesite.
“What?” The glass rattles, and I look down. I’d almost set it on the edge. I fumble, lose my grip, and watch distantly as the glass falls on the floor. There’s a woven carpet under the bed, so it doesn’t break, but the rest of the water splashes over his night stand. “Sorry,” I try to say, but it comes out, “Sowwy.”
“It’s time for you to leave,” Hunter says, getting to his feet.
He’s wearing clothes. Which is strange because I could have sworn he was wearing a robe.
Now a shapeless long-sleeved shirt, sleeves rolled up.
Lines of white on his arm. More scars. Not from popping or missing veins. Those look like defensive wounds.
I would know.
On impulse, I try to squeeze my thighs together.
They don’t move.
I can’t move.
I’m paralyzed.
The thought alone has my heart racing, but there’s no surge of adrenaline.
No fight, no flight.
I lie here, breathing shallowly as the light begins to fade around me.
My gaze flies to the windows, and if I could have moved, I would have recoiled.
The darkness is pushing in.
It oozed through the joints where the windows meet the wood.
Black tar-thick liquid drips to the floor and edges closer as determinedly as a blood spill.
“Help,” I moan.
“Quiet,” a voice murmurs. “It’s almost over.”
The dark swarms over everything. It collapses on me as a cold, heavy weight. I struggle, and hands pin me down.
Whatever strength remained in me leeches out, siphoned by the pulsing throat of midnight. A dark that’s been watching me since I can remember.
Watching.
Waiting.
Biding its time.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hunter
The only sound in my office is the quiet hum of my computer’s fan.
I don’t keep any paper files. All my research, my notes, every paper I’ve ever written—it’s all on my computer. Backed up to the cloud—several storage sites for redundancy—and on three different external hard drives, one of which I keep off site.
Three monitors face me, the outer two turned slightly in for a better viewing angle.
Clover fills all three screens. In the center monitor, she’s curled in a fetal position as she sleeps. She braids her hair at night, and it lays behind her on the pillow like a dark snake. There is no color to this video—I have to use my UF cameras to watch her in the dark.
Half an hour ago, the room was much brighter. She was one of only two patients who insisted on a night light. I insist the light is turned off as soon as she is asleep, of course.
Deep sleep, delta sleep, is a crucial remedy for broken minds.
On the monitor to left, Clover hunches over a bowl of fresh fruit. She picks idly at the food, her skin lackluster and her eyes dull.
That was week two of her detox. She lost four pounds before her appetite eventually returned.
On the monitor to the right, Clover stands by a floor-to-ceiling window, staring out over the Institute’s landscape.
I will be the first to admit that the H.I.’s panoramic view is far superior to my own cabin’s, mostly because much of the surrounding forest had to be removed to make way for a parking lot and recreational areas.
As I watch Clover sleeping, my thumb caresses the scar on my inner wrist. The sensation is a comforting one—one I never allow myself outside these four walls. An abscess of its size should have been a blatant wake up call. It wasn’t. If my sister Holly hadn’t seen the wound, I wouldn’t be here today.
Now that everything’s in place, I almost feel anxious.
If last night was a yard stick for the success of my trial, then I should prepare for more surprises.
However, where Clover was in her element last night, now I’m in mine.
The success of my entire thesis revolves around this next phase.
A success which depends, in some part, on Clover. On her ability to open up to me.
To trust me.
She did last night. She will again.
On the center console, Clover shifts and rolls onto her back. One hand splays to the pillow beside her head, the other falls in her lap.
A reverie of last night blasts through my mind like a DMT hallucination.
Clover’s back arching as I fuck her, drawing a rough gasp through wide parted lips.
Hunter.
I shift in my seat and force the memory from my mind with vicious determination.
Clover sleeps undisturbed, chest rising and falling.
None of these feeds are live, of course. I’m simply double-checking the notes I made on Clover’s sleeping and eating patterns during the first stages of her recovery.
Passing the time really.
I exit the center monitor’s feed and glance at the time.
Dawn broke an hour ago.
Clover will be waking soon.
* * *
“Esli?”
I pause at the front door of my cabin, waiting for Esli to answer.
A few seconds later, the serving woman hurries into the living area, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Yes, Mr. Hill?” She’s sixty-eight, Salvadoran, and I doubt she even has a green card—but her husband is dead and she doesn’t ask any questions. I’m not sure why she came to America, but I’ve never felt the need to ask, either. I won’t say I trust her, but I don’t lose any sleep over the things she might have seen in my home.
She has no one to tell about them, to my knowledge. And the only affiliations she appears to hold is to whichever Pope holds the papacy these days.
“Lock up when you leave. I’ll see you on Friday.”
“Friday?” She pauses, wrinkled hands clutching hard at the dish cloth. “You don’t need me?”
“Not until Friday.”
Her eyes dart over my outfit, and she gives me a toothy smile. “Ah, pescar!”
I dip my head. “You got me.”
“¡Excelente! You work too hard.” She nods emphatically. Then she shrugs. “You tell, I make tea bread.”
“I’m fasting,” I say, patting my stomach. “But thank you, Esli.”
She nods, twisting the rag between her hands as I turn and head for the front door.
The fishing rod goes straight back in the storage shed tucked in the back of my property.
I grab the edge of my baseball cap and tug it lower over my forehead.
Seconds later, I disappear into the inviting green bosom of Shadow Fox Grove.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clover
I’m woken by the furious trilling of a bird. I open my eye a crack and squeeze it closed again. It’s too bright for my dry, grainy eyes. I shift a little, lips twitching as something sticks in my side.
Fuck—I remember Hunter’s be
d being more comfortable than this.
Hunter.
I lose myself in a blissful wave of erotic memories.
“Mmm,” I murmur, rolling onto my back.
The air moving over my legs feels cool, but damp.
Strange. I bring a heavy hand to my chest where it touches something warm and soft. A sweater or something? My fingertips trail down.
My legs are bare.
And they’re freezing. I run my hand down my body, hunting for a sheet or a coverlet—something to draw over myself so can warm the fuck up. I can’t even feel my toes.
I find nothing but strange, sticky things that plaster themselves on my palms.
“Hunter?” I croak.
I feel beside me.
Finally, the sensations my fingertips have been submitting via my nerves are cleared by customs and my brain receives a thousand bazillion teragigs of information.
I scramble up, a scream trapped in my throat.
I slap at my legs, trying to swipe damp, rotting leaves from my skin. A swarm of thoughts flood through my head.
I’m dreaming.
This is a dream.
The dark is waiting for me, and the hands that always come in the dark.
I spin around, and then I do scream because I finally have control of my voice.
The forest whirls around me like we’re dancing.
I stagger, barely noticing as my bare feet crunch over more molding leaves and sharp twigs.
The smell of earth and my own sweat fills my nose.
Something tickles the nape of my neck and I scream again, brushing my hands furiously in my hair.
A beetle falls out, rolling into a little ball before opening and scurrying away. It disappears into my bed—a patch of damp-dark leaves piled in a heap beside the trunk of a fallen pine tree.
My arms strangle me as I hold on to myself. Color catches my eye, holding it like a neon sign.
A bright yellow arrow is painted on a nearby tree. It points to the right. I force myself to look away.