by B. B. Hamel
Bind
A Dark Romance
B. B. Hamel
Contents
Mailing List
1. Noah
2. Amelia
3. Noah
4. Amelia
5. Noah
6. Amelia
7. Noah
8. Amelia
9. Noah
10. Amelia
11. Noah
12. Amelia
13. Noah
14. Amelia
15. Noah
16. Amelia
17. Noah
18. Amelia
19. Noah
20. Amelia
21. Noah
22. Amelia
23. Noah
24. Amelia
25. Noah
26. Amelia
27. Amelia
28. Noah
Kissing the Killer: A Bad Boy Romance
Prologue: Emma
1. Brooks
2. Emma
3. Brooks
4. Emma
5. Brooks
6. Emma
7. Brooks
8. Emma
9. Brooks
10. Emma
11. Brooks
12. Emma
13. Brooks
14. Emma
15. Brooks
16. Emma
17. Brooks
18. Emma
19. Brooks
20. Emma
21. Brooks
22. Emma
23. Brooks
24. Emma
25. Brooks
26. Emma
27. Brooks
28. Emma
29. Brooks
Epilogue: Emma
SEALed Bride: A Bad Boy Romance
Prologue
1. Selena
2. Nash
3. Selena
4. Nash
5. Selena
6. Nash
7. Selena
8. Nash
9. Selena
10. Nash
11. Selena
12. Nash
13. Selena
14. Nash
15. Selena
16. Nash
17. Selena
18. Nash
19. Selena
20. Nash
21. Selena
22. Nash
23. Selena
24. Nash
25. Selena
26. Nash
27. Selena
28. Nash
29. Selena
30. Nash
31. Selena
32. Nash
33. Selena
Man of the House: A Dark Romance
1. Emily
2. Carter
3. Emily
4. Carter
5. Emily
6. Carter
7. Emily
8. Carter
9. Emily
10. Carter
11. Emily
12. Carter
13. Emily
14. Carter
15. Emily
16. Carter
17. Emily
18. Carter
19. Emily
20. Carter
21. Emily
22. Carter
23. Emily
24. Carter
25. Emily
26. Carter
27. Emily
Thank You
Preview
Preview
Copyright © 2016 by B. B. Hamel
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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1
Noah
The house is empty and dark, just as I knew it would be. Weeks of painful and difficult surveillance led to this moment, and I know that the moment I’ve been looking forward to is quickly approaching.
I’m a solitary man. I’ve spent most of my life alone. Although I’ve been with plenty of women just for one night, none of them have ever satisfied me before. Nothing satisfies me like the hunt. Nothing quiets the screaming need inside of me like the kill.
It’s impossible to explain how I ended up this way. Maybe it was because of what I saw as a kid. There was blood, so much blood, and I remember touching it with my fingers. I remember touching her skin with my fingers, willing her to get up, begging her to breathe again.
It doesn’t matter how I ended up like this, not really. All I know is I am the way I am and nothing can change me. I take what I want because I have to. If I didn’t, the world might be an even worse place.
I have rules. I live by the rules and so far I haven’t gotten caught. Nobody has even come close to catching me. Why would they? I’m popular playboy Noah Black. I’m rich and successful, and that’s enough for most people. Nobody bothers looking too closely.
That’s how I want it. I give the world the Noah that they want, but the real me is the man lurking in this house right now, creeping over the floorboards.
The house is a mess. My target, Rick Jones, isn’t exactly interested in keeping up appearances. He’s a drunk, a junkie, an asshole, and a minor thief. But none of that is why he came onto my radar. Rick seems like an everyday, run of the mill douchebag, but he’s actually much worse than that.
Rick is a lot like me, actually. Instinctively I know that I’m very similar to my victims. The difference is, they do fucked up and horrible things while I simply pick them off one by one, sating my screaming need.
But we both show a face to the world while hiding our true colors. The face Rick chooses is a racist, violent asshole, but still a lovable working class kind of guy. Sure, he’s rough and rugged and drinks too much, but can you blame him? He works hard down at the mill and he deserves to blow off some steam. Life has been tough to Rick Jones.
That’s what he wants you to think. That’s the mask he wears and he wears it well. But I’ve seen through his mask.
I step over a pile of old newspapers. Rick lives in an old row home in the north side of town in a pretty rough neighborhood. The kitchen is a mess, the living room is practically covered in garbage, and if I didn’t know better I’d suspect a hoarder lives in this house. His television room is surprisingly neat, or maybe unsurprisingly, since he spends all his time in there watching football and drinking beer when he’s not out at his local bar telling bullshit stories.
Or trying to rape thirteen-year-old girls.
I slowly creep up the steps. I can feel the backpack weighing heavily on my back, but I can’t afford to leave that behind. My pack is part of my rules. I’m always prepared for a kill, no matter where it happens. I can’t get sloppy, or else bad things will happen to me.
I reach down and feel the large knife in the sheath on my belt. It’s reassuring, powerful. I’ve taken a lot of lives with this knife. I’ve killed over eighty scumbags in my short career, which might be a record if someone was keeping track of that sort of thing. Eighty-two pieces of shit that I meticulously stalked, watched, and researched before finally going in for the perfect kill. Over eighty successful outings.
This is going to be eighty-three. I can feel it in my bones. It’s around two in the morning and Rick just got back from the bar, which means he’s stinking drunk. He should be in the shower by now, since he always gets in the shower before passing out in bed. As I get to the top of the stairs, I can hear the water runnin
g, and I smile to myself.
Another perfectly planned kill.
I creep to the bathroom door and slowly turn the knob. It opens without any resistance. Steam piles out of the room as I step into the light.
Rick hums to himself behind the white curtain. My heart begins to beat faster, anticipating the moment. I quietly put my pack on the floor and gently close the door behind me. Silently, I pull out my knife and step toward the curtain.
Rick is blissfully unaware that his time on earth is about to come to an end. I could practically shout, I’m so damn starving. The screaming need inside of me rages against my self-control, but I have to keep it at bay. I can’t afford any more screw-ups.
I stand at the curtain, knife drawn. This is the moment. This is what I’ve been waiting for. I pull it back and Rick stares at me, shock on his face. I stare back at his old, naked, flabby body and smile at him.
“Remember Louisa Reyes?” I ask him.
“Who the fuck are you?” he sputters at me.
“Remember Louisa Reyes?” I ask again.
He finally notices my knife and recoils from me. “What the fuck? What do you want? I have money.”
“Louisa Reyes.”
“The Hispanic bitch. I mean, Mexican girl. I mean, yeah. I know her.”
I smile at him. “I know you do.”
I plunge my knife into his chest. He gasps and stares at it, uncomprehending, and then slowly sinks down the wall and into the tub.
The water sprays against his body, washing his blood down the drain as his life leaves him. I stand there watching, the screaming need inside of me finally feeling satisfied.
I take a deep breath and let it out. It had been too long since my last kill. This one felt so damn good.
The sound of the bathroom door opening shocks even me, the man who is always prepared.
She’s probably in her early twenties, pale with green eyes and gorgeous thick dark hair. She’s beautiful but wearing ratty clothing and has a black eye.
The girl looks at me then looks at Rick.
“Dad?” she asks softly.
Fuck. He has a daughter.
She looks at me, back to her father again, and then turns to run.
2
Amelia
My face aches where my father punched me the day before. I touch it gingerly, looking in the mirror. It’s already turning black and blue, which isn’t too surprisingly. I’ve had plenty of black eyes over the years living with Rick and this probably isn’t the worst one.
My father is a piece of shit. Everyone knows it. There’s no question about Rick Jones. The neighborhood tolerates him because he’s charismatic and can fool some people into thinking he’s not just a total waste of space, but the truth is, my father is a very bad man.
I had a mother once too, a long time ago, but she’s gone now. Died of a heroin overdose when I was six. I can still remember walking into their bedroom and watching my father trying to wake her up, trying to bring her back, but failing.
He went downhill after that, though I guess he probably wasn’t great back then either. I went to high school for a little while, but when I turned sixteen he demanded that I drop out and get a job to help support myself. I did, of course, because I was a stupid kid back then and had no clue what I was doing.
Now, I’m twenty-two, I work at Rite Aid, and I have no education. I’m a nothing in a shit neighborhood with an abusive asshole father, and that’s all I’ll ever be.
I live in a prison. I can leave it any time, but that makes it worse, because I know I never will. My father needs me to keep him alive, although I wonder why I do it every single day, I still make sure he’s fed and shaved and doesn’t choke on his own puke at night.
I keep to myself. I have a room up in the attic of our house and I don’t leave it much, except to go to work. I cook and clean sometimes, but mainly I stay upstairs and use my computer. I have lots of friends online, people that don’t know the real me. I hide the real me, because I hate what I’ve become.
Just anther abused, uneducated poor girl living in the hood.
I lean back in my chair and sigh. I want to get out, leave my father and join the world, but I can’t. I can’t get a good enough job that will support me because I have no skills. Every time I do manage to save some money, Rick barges into my room and steals it. Then he rages at me, hits me, throws me around, and blames me for all his problems. I look too much like my mother, he says, and that makes him depressed.
I hurt him just by existing.
I’ve learned to cope. I bought some locks for my bedroom door, and that has helped lately. I know he’ll break it down sooner or later, but for now, I can at least sleep knowing he can’t easily get in. He hasn’t come into my room late at night in a long time, but the memories are still there and the fear is still inside of me.
I stand up and stretch. I can hear the shower water running downstairs which means my father is back from the bar. I need to go down and check on him, make sure he hasn’t smashed up his face or done something stupid so that I can go to sleep in peace.
I toss on a sweatshirt and creep down the steps. It’s dark on the second floor but I know it all by heart anyway. I can hear my father humming, but suddenly that stops. I hear something else, something I didn’t expect.
Another man’s voice.
I stand still, straining to hear, but the words are muffled by the walls and the running water. I walk closer to the door, trying to figure what’s happening. Did my father bring a man home? Is he selling himself for cash and drugs now? Or is this some bookie here to break Rick’s legs over some idiotic gambling debt? Anything is possible with my piece of shit father.
I take the door handle. I hear a grunt and a thud as I slowly push the door open.
I stare at my father. He’s pressed against the shower wall, his eyes open in horror, his hands gripping at a knife that’s shoved into his chest. He’s slowly sliding down into the tub. For a second, we make eye contact.
And then I see him. He’s wearing a black t-shirt, a black jacket, and black pants with a dark brown belt. There’s a backpack on the floor beside me. He half turns and notices me standing there.
Piercing blue eyes, handsome, square face. Stubble covers his attractive jaw and rings his full lips. He’s gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, and I don’t know what to do.
Shock fills my body. My father is slumped over in the tub, blood slowly spilling down the drain.
Without thinking, I turn and start running.
I don’t know where I’m trying to go, but that man just murdered my father. I can’t think, can’t breathe, I just start running down the steps. I can hear the man behind me, coming after me, the thumping of his shoes on the floor getting closer. I fly down the steps and hit the far wall before running back toward the kitchen.
Shit, I just passed the front door. I head through toward the kitchen, trying to get to the back door. There’s a killer in my house, a murderer, a crazy man. He’s going to kill me like he killed my father. Sheer panic drives me forward.
I reach the back door and grab the handle. As I turn it, something slams into me pinning me against the back door.
I struggle like my life depends on it, because it does.
“Stop,” he orders me. “Stop struggling. I’m not here for you.”
“You killed him. Please.” I can’t think. I just keep saying that over and over.
“Calm down. You weren’t supposed to be here.”
My mind is totally filled with blind, animalistic panic. Finally I watch as he pulls something from his pocket.
A syringe.
A scream tries to tear itself from my lips but he quickly thrusts a hand over my mouth, shoving my head back against the wood. He’s big and so much stronger than I am. I try to fight but he’s too much for me. I watch in horror as the syringe comes toward my neck.
“This won’t hurt,” he whispers. “Don’t fight it.”
The syringe plunges into my neck. I g
asp as I feel a coldness spread through my veins.
The world goes wobbly and loose.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Go ahead. Go to sleep.”
Gorgeous blue eyes. Big, strong arms, wrapped around my body.
The world goes sideways then dark.
3
Noah
Fucking shit. That was the closest I’ve ever come to getting caught, and my problems still aren’t over.
Rick’s daughter is slumped down in the hallway, unconscious. I know I have at least four hours before she wakes up, more if I dose her again, though I don’t want to. Another dose would be dangerous. I don’t want to risk stopping her heart. I don’t want to risk killing the girl.
Which is a little ironic. I’m a serial killer, after all. But I don’t hurt innocents. I don’t hurt people that don’t deserve it. That’s part of my rules, and part of what has kept me flying under the radar for so long. The cops don’t really give a fuck if a scumbag disappears from the hood. It happens all the fucking time. Sometimes junkies skip town, or they get killed by the mob, or they just overdose and rot away in some abandoned house, or any number of things. If I’m careful and smart, most of the time the cops barely investigate.
This is fucked up, though. Normally I’d take my time and dismantle Rick’s body to make disposal easier, but I don’t have time. Instead, I wrap his body in plastic and then again in black trash bags. My van is parked in the alley behind the house and I should be able to get him through the back yard and into the van without arousing any suspicions.
The girl is harder, though. I can’t just wrap her up, she might suffocate. I’ll have to risk carrying her.
Once I’m finished with Rick, I drag him down the steps. I’m not careful with him, since he doesn’t care anymore, and his body bumps down the stairs. Once at the bottom, I drag him through the house and out the back door.
Once I’m in the yard, I get on one knee and slowly pull him up onto my shoulders. I stand and carry him, all his dead fucking weight directly on my body. I stagger but manage to get through the back gate. I pull open my van and toss him in there, shutting the door quietly again.