“Well, she doesn’t have a tongue,” he chuckled.
I almost dropped the water I’d just picked up, gaping across the table at him. I didn’t dare ask why or how that happened—not that I didn’t want to know, but she was possibly in the next room, and I had decent manners if nothing else.
“Mason.” Sighing, I placed the glass back on the table. “Why did you save me?” It was a simple question I plucked from the dozen circling in my mind.
“I was lonely, and so were you. We don’t ever have to be that way again.”
I thought that would be the extent of his answer, but then he elaborated, leaving me with nothing else to say.
“I wanted you before I even met you. You’re strange like me; it's clear as day. I have been waiting for someone like you for a very long time. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m pretty fucking enamored with you in every way.” He cut into his steak and took a bite.
Why would he be enamored with me?
Because you’re a perfect match. You just won’t accept it.
I wanted to, though. I wanted to be with him in every way there was to be with someone, but I couldn’t tell his truths from his lies, and I was proving to be a weak-hearted fool when it came to him. All he had to do was touch me, and my body would detonate.
Even then, I should have been more focused on whether or not he’d lied to me about my mother.
Instead, I was thinking about what he’d just said. We ate in silence for a while before he spoke again.
“Would you ever kill someone?” he cocked his head to the side and asked.
“No,” I answered flippantly.
“Have you ever killed a bug?”
“Are you comparing a human life to a bug’s? That’s not even the same thing.” My tone was incredulous.
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes, Mason, I have killed a bug.”
“See, that makes you a killer. Who gets to decide which life is more valuable than another? It’s just like morals. Everyone will have a slightly different definition of what’s right and what’s wrong, but is it wrong because they were taught it was? And is something right because of the same reason?”
I simply stared at him, words failing me.
God, this man is beautifully brilliant.
“Just answer this, Katie. Would you kill to save a life?”
“I’m not a killer.”
“That’s a shame. I think it’s time we fix that.” He gave me a smile full of ill intention, taking another bite of his food. “You need to embrace your dark side.”
Chapter Twenty
The food I’d just consumed sat in my stomach like a heavy bag of rocks.
He led me through his kitchen, and through an open door I quickly realized led to a basement. The gritty stone walls were tight, opening up the further you went down. I didn’t have to wait very long to find out what was below.
From the kitchen, all had been silent. The closer we got to the bottom, the louder the muffled sobs became.
Stopping in my tracks, I shook my head, attempting to pull my hand free from his.
“No, Mason. I don’t want to see whatever this is.”
“If you don’t come with me, pretty girl, two people will die very soon.” He continued walking, ignoring my pleas. Knowing whatever I was about to see would forever be ingrained in my brain, I tried to prepare myself as best I could.
Instead of another woman restrained in a chair, there were two women standing on crates. Both of them looked equally terrified.
“What is this?” Pulling my hand from his, I began to back away. His basement had the same look as the room upstairs. The old bloodstains on the floor let me know he’d done this before.
“The one on the left is an old fuck. The one on the right is my grade school math teacher, who hates my dad.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“You’re going to spend the rest of your life with me. In this house, shit like this is normal. You need to get used to it.”
“I didn’t ask to live in your fucking house!”
He stared at me a minute before letting out a rich laugh.
“You’re sexy when you’re mad; we should do this more often.”
I think I may have felt every possible emotion there was to feel in less than two hours. My head felt as if it were going to explode.
I thought I had issues; Mason needed a straight-jacket and some tranquilizers.
“You’re sick in the head.”
“So are you. That’s why we’re perfect for each other.”
I’d been speaking to myself in the first place, but he didn’t need to know that.
“I’m not watching this.” Turning around, I took maybe two steps before he gave his ultimatum.
“You don’t have to watch, but if you don’t pick one in five minutes, they both die.”
I looked at him over my shoulder, hating how attracted to him I was, even in the middle of this horrible situation. We were in a cruddy basement with two women about to be hanged, and I was still staring at him like he was the sun in the sky.
“Why are you doing this to them if you know them?” I looked between the two crates, searching for a way I could get them down.
“This was my father’s idea. I don’t have an issue with either one of them. Sometimes, things just happen. Four minutes, by the way.”
What kind of a father figure did he have?
“Three minutes,” he warned, staring at his watch.
“Your ex,” I blurted out.
“She’s not my ex; I said we used to fuck. There’s a huge difference.” Going right up to the crates, he kicked both of them away. It took that drastic action for me to see that it wasn’t rope around their necks. Thin razor barbed wire caught, snagging and slicing into their throats at the same time.
Crimson seemed to spray in every direction. I screamed, jumping back in horror. His math teacher’s head was almost severed from her body.
Parts of the neck I never wanted to see were exposed, tissue spilling outward. Neither could scream because of the way he had gagged them. They were dead within a few seconds of each other.
“I chose! I did what you said!” I yelled at him, hating how calm he still seemed to be.
“I said you had five minutes. I never said you needed to choose before then. The point of this was for you to hold out until the time was up. I realize I didn’t explain it correctly and that wasn’t fair to our guinea pigs.”
He stood there, watching bodies sway and blood coat the floor without a care in the world. How many times had he done this before? Why didn’t it bother me more?
When he turned his head to look at me, he had the same look in his eyes he’d had when I was pinned to the wall.
I needed to get away from him.
Backing up with carefully measured steps, I waited until I was at the bottom of the stairs before turning around and darting up them. I heard his shoes hit the bottom step just as I reached the kitchen.
Slamming the door shut, I slid the lock into place and leaned against it to catch my breath. What did I do now?
“Katie, isn’t this a little childish?” He didn’t attempt to open the door; he must have heard the lock being engaged on his way up the stairs.
“You need help, Mason.” Turning so my forehead was resting on the smooth wood, I heard him hitting buttons on his phone.
Let him out; what are you doing?
“I’m not the one who’s split in two. I know exactly who I am. Do you?”
When my eyes started burning, I silently cursed myself. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I could no longer think of him as a stranger when he knew every inch of my body and had saved my life.
“Do you think the law is going to protect you?”
He laughed when I didn’t respond. How did he always know what I planned to do next?
“Katie, you’re so naïve, so sheltered,” he sighed. �
�Let me out, and we can go to the Riverview sheriff station together.”
Riverview? How far was that from Redwood?
Turning back around, I sunk down the door and dropped my head to my knees.
This quick thinking plan of mine had already failed.
I couldn’t get out of his house. There were no phones, and there was a girl with no tongue somewhere lurking in the halls.
I was stuck with a man who killed without remorse. I was more afraid of me than I was of him, but I couldn’t let him know that.
The only reason I chose who I did was because the thought of her touching any part of him made me want to set her on fire.
Chapter Twenty-One
My usual reaction to bullshit was to get rid of whoever or whatever decided to cause me disturbance.
I couldn’t get rid of Katie, but that didn’t stop me from picturing a million different ways to make her pay for what she did. My patience was something I prided myself on, but everyone has a limit.
Being locked in my own damn basement and having to exit it from the cellar door like a peasant was mine.
Walking around the perimeter of my house, I slipped back inside without a sound.
Going straight for the kitchen, I paused in the doorway. Seeing her distraught over me only made me more determined to make her assimilate.
When she lifted her head, I was already kneeling down in front of her. I watched confusion, horror, and then relief play out across her face.
If she knew all the things I wanted to do to her, she wouldn’t be so calm. She was perfect for me. She was mine, and she had yet to acknowledge it.
I grabbed her by the throat, forcing her to look me in the eyes so there could be no discrepancies later.
Her blue eyes searched my face, but she wasn’t afraid. Not once had I been the reason for her fear.
Did she think I didn’t know the truth?
It usually took me less than three days to figure out a woman’s weak spots. I’d been watching her for three years. I knew more about her than she did.
“I kill people. My dad kills people. My grandfather kills people. My step-mom kills people. Cousins, uncles, we all do it. We’re one big happy goddamn family, and now you’re part of it. I don’t give a shit if you like it or not. The only way you’re leaving me is in a hole that’s six foot wide and eight feet deep.
“And if you keep pissing me off, I’m going to lock you in a room so dark and so quiet, you’ll hear trees sway from a mile away.”
I felt her swallow beneath my palm. The hurt that flashed through her eyes pissed me off. I wanted her pain, but only if it gave us both pleasure.
This situation needed to be brought under control.
She was so damn complex. There was a woman inside her trapped behind years of stigma.
If I had to twist words and manipulate her for me to get what I wanted, and for her to be happy, I was going to. I stood up, bringing her with me by the throat. She let out a soft mewl but didn’t resist.
“Let’s go.” Slowly walking us backward, using my vise-like grip as a leash, I placed my free hand on her pussy and traced up and down the labia.
Her little intake of breath had me ready to drag her across the room and fuck her against the nearest wall.
Patience won out, and we made it to the dining room.
When we got to the table, I let her throat go to grab her perfect ass and lift her up, placing her cunt right at the edge.
She stared up at me, the tip of her tongue making a quick swipe across her lips.
I just stood there in that dimly lit room, between her legs, staring down at her. She had no idea how beautiful she was. Telling her would never get that point across.
She had just seen me cause two people’s deaths, yet here she was, flat on her back on my table with her legs spread. I could do whatever I wanted to her, and I intended to.
There was a knife, a candle, and a tie.
When it was us, like this, the truth about me didn’t matter. She didn’t need to know, and I was never going to tell her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He wrapped his tie around my eyes and bent me over the table, stripping me of everything but my lace bottoms.
“What are you thinking right now?” he asked, running a palm over my ass.
“This is all a dream, and I’ll wake up soon,” I whispered. His hand was replaced with something cold and metallic; my stomach dipped when I felt the rim of a smooth blade against my flesh.
“Does this feel real enough?” He dragged the knife across my left cheek, causing me to let out a sharp hiss.
He kept one hand pressed down on the center of my back, preventing me from moving anywhere.
I felt a slow trickle of blood begin to run down my leg. A second later, his mouth was covering where he’d just cut me, and he was biting down. Squeezing my eyes shut, I bit back a whimper.
You like this.
Something made a small sound to my right, a little way above my head. I jerked slightly, crying out when he dragged his knife across my other globe, repeating the same action from before, only this time he swiped his tongue over the wound.
“When all you can think about is my dick inside your pussy and my hand around your throat, is that real?”
“How do you know—”
“I watch you, Katie. I’m always watching you.” He made another cut, going a little deeper than he had the first time. I endured it; I wanted it.
“Answer me.” He gripped both my cheeks, digging his fingers into where he cut them, and spread them apart. I cried out, wriggling in an attempt to get him off. Blood was running from me onto the table now.
“It’s real. I don’t understand it, but you’re all I think about.” I abruptly stopped talking when he flipped me over onto my back, the glass table groaning beneath my weight.
He grabbed hold of my legs, hooking them over his shoulders, pulling me through the small puddle of crimson.
“I’ll show you.”
Show me what?
Holding my legs firm, his mouth found its way between my thighs, where he teased an area I considered off limits. The very tip of his tongue eased in and out of my ass, circling the rim, then moving up to tease my clit.
He flattened it, moving back down again, pushing it into the puckered hole a bit further than before. I didn’t know this was a thing; it felt incredible. If he weren't holding my legs, I would have jerked off the table.
More. Take more.
There was no encouragement needed; I grabbed at his shoulders until he finally stopped, too breathless to say anything.
“I know what you need.” Gripping my ankles, he flipped me back onto my stomach, positioning me so I was flush against him. The smooth head of his cock pressed between my ass cheeks. He held my cheeks spread open and forced himself inside.
The scream that unfurled from my throat echoed through his entire house.
It hurt so much worse than the first time he took me. My fingers glided across the bloody tabletop in my desperate attempt to hold onto something. My ass burned from the inside out, but the hold he had on me kept me from running away.
When something started burning flesh, my voice gave out. It felt like he was playing roulette on my back with a lit cigarette. By the time I realized it was candle wax, I was used to it.
“You can’t ever leave me, Katie.” He sounded manic, like he truly couldn’t cope if I weren't there, shoving me into another orbit of confusion.
His thrusts grew harder, smashing my stomach into the table. The legs screeched on the marble floor as it began to move. He seesawed in and out of my ass, holding me down by the back of the head. Everything became too much; it hurt so bad, it began to feel good.
“God, Mason,” I moaned his name, repeating the same two words over and over again, feeling the familiar pressure building inside me, the pleasure ready to pervade through my body.
He lurched down, biting my shoulder. The pain was exactly what I needed for us to
come together.
I felt his warm come sliding between my cheeks once he pulled out. The tie was all but torn away from my face; he spun me around, pulling me into him and attacking my mouth.
My body was trembling, and my entire backside hurt, but I didn’t care. I kissed him back with the same aggressive passion he was giving me.
He was the perfect man with an unusual avocation.
He was someone I should have been fighting tooth and nail to get away from, but I’m not sure I had much of a choice when it came to wanting him.
If only someone would have told me all the things I didn’t yet know.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I leaned against the door of my car, staring down into the Devil’s Canyon.
My mother died down there; she drove my father’s car straight over the edge. Her mind broke, and the wrong people took advantage of her.
And, no, that didn’t fuck me up in some psychological way. I had a perfectly healthy mind.
I was raised not to abide by the rules of society, so I didn’t. My father, on the other hand, had never quite gotten over her death—not that I blamed him.
Katie had me bewitched. She took up a corner of my desolate soul. I wish she knew how much I knew her. Everything I did was for us, in the long run.
She didn’t look so suicidal anymore; there was a lightness slowly creeping back into her eyes. Denying her true nature wouldn’t work much longer. She liked bloodshed almost as much as I did. Which reminded me—I hadn’t painted since she got home.
The crunch of car tires on gravel pulled me from my thoughts and alerted me to Glenda’s arrival. Her maroon SUV pulled up beside my car; she flashed me a smile before getting out.
“Well, how is my little Genie?” she questioned, walking around the front of the car. I kept my composure, not giving her any reaction.
I wanted to toss her pathetic ass off the cliff. She treated my Katie like shit.
How couldn’t she see the girl she was supposed to raise was ten times smarter than she was?
“She’s perfect.”
“Oh? So you told her the truth?” She stepped in front of me, bringing us chest to chest. I reached out and not so gently nudged her back.
Obscene: A Dahlia Saga Novel Page 7