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I nip her bottom lip as I line myself up and push in.

She’s heaven on earth. So tight and wet that the feeling of her body erases every thought from my mind. I stop worrying about the blood and the alley. I stop worrying about where I was beforehand and how I got there.

All that exists is the sensation of her hot core around me. She rocks her hips and moans, long and low, her pussy clenching around me as she comes.

Then she lets go and rides me, crying out as she comes again. I thrust into her faster, deeper, the heat between us getting stronger until I’m inhaling her moans and exhaling grunts.

“Come inside me,” she begs. “Dean, I need to feel it.”

She gasps as I start to come, balancing against me so I’m buried as deep as I can be. The pulses are blindingly good and steal my breath as I pump myself inside her, letting my body take control.

Fuck. I lose control and come buried deep inside of her.

I pant against her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin while she runs her fingers through my hair.

“I love you,” she whispers. More heat swells through my body. “I love you. I know it’s so hard, but don’t forget, okay? I need you to remember.”

“I will,” I promise, even though I know it’s not a promise I can keep. “I could never forget you.”

HALEY

Ever since I was a kid, I liked to listen to the local news. Half-listen, really, since I don’t pay full attention to whatever they’re saying. In the evenings they run out of crime stories pretty early on and move to human interest pieces. Last week I saw one about a woman who was turning a hundred years old and had lived in the same house for over half a century. Tonight, they’re interviewing a man who lost his house in a fire and ended up buying a food truck. Now he drives around to different towns and sells people lunch after the local farmer’s market.

Maybe I’m a busy body, maybe I just want to know how much bad there is compared to how much good. I’m not sure.

I take a sip of my wine, cuddled up on my sofa, and scroll on my phone. I’m not really paying attention to the online shopping I’m doing, either. New art for my office, maybe. The abstract piece I’ve had in there could use a change. There are hundreds of prints to choose from.

A landscape could be good.

This is a habit of mine I’m aware has its pros and cons. Mindlessly scrolling, half paying attention, unwinding with a glass of wine and then I sleep, deeply and soundly.

I flip through different prints of the countryside on some art site that came up as an ad. A painting of a lake catches my eye. Oh—the artist has done a ton of different paintings at all times throughout the day and night.

The sound from the food truck segment cuts off as I take another sip of my wine.

“We’re interrupting our previous segment to bring you breaking news.” There’s a tension in the anchor’s voice that isn’t usually there. My body stills. I’ve never seen this particular anchor get shaken up over anything, but now she stares into the camera like she’s trying to hide her shock. “The body of a man was discovered early this morning by members of the local police department. Darell Hunt was found?—”

Darell Hunt.They flash his picture up on the screen. It’s a headshot taken at his most recent job—not the school I went to, but a different private school. He still looks the same in the photo. Perfectly recognizable. He aged around his eyes and has more gray to his hair… but when I look at him, the memory of what he used to be is all that I see.

My body stills, the trauma taking hold and I have to remind myself I’m not there, he has no control over me. In fact, the bastard is dead.

Footage of an alley with yellow police tape across the entrance flashes on the screen as the anchor recaps how a call came in from a concerned citizen. By then, Mr. Hunt, a husband and uncle to three children, had been dead for hours, his body found early in the morning.

I swallow thickly, my heart racing. And the flash of who I thought I saw yesterday outside of my office comes to mind.Thump, thump, it’s hard to hear over the pounding in my chest.

The broadcast cuts to a press conference led by the local police chief.

He looks down at his notes, blinking in the bright lights. “We’re prepared to announce to the public that several recent homicides appear to be connected. The manner of death?—”

Thump, thump, thump.I cling to the glass of wine, not daring to take my eyes off the screen.

Lots of cameras flash. People shout questions. The police chief repeats several times that he can’t give out certain details of an active investigation.

“One more question.” He points into the crowd of reporters.

“Thank you, sir,” a man calls from the reporters off-camera. “Does the police department have reason to believe that these homicides might have been committed by the same individual? In other words, are we looking for a serial killer?”

Chills run down my spine and panic runs through me.