Page 76

I know the answer, but I know it isn't something I can tell him. He wouldn't like it, and he wouldn't accept it.

But the very real difference is that it wasn't my fault. Noah hurt me, but I didn't hurt Noah like he did—or like Mia did. I loved her, and she knows it because I told her.

That's why Tate is haunted. Because he hurt her, and it's his fault she's gone now, and he knows it.

"I want to do it, though," he said, teasing the head of my dick with his thumb. "I want to kill someone…like you did. I want to know what it feels like."

"Not Noah,"I groan, gritting my teeth as my dick swells in his fist.

"Someone no one will notice is missing," Tate said. "Just to see how it feels. You liked how it felt, didn't you? Crushing his face with your bare hands?"

My cock jumps, precum leaking from the tip. Yeah, I fucking liked it, and he knows it, too.

Moving onto all fours, he licks my cum from the head, swirling his pierced tongue around the tip before taking me so far in his throat that his lips almost touch the base.

I don't know how he does it, but it drives me fucking crazy.

I need him to move; I need him to slide those lips, that fucking tongue back down my cock, but he holds it there, moaning around me, the vibrations making me writhe beneath him as he squeezes my balls.

Finally, he gives me what I want, sliding his tongue back up my cock. I move onto my knees, gripping the sides of his head in my hands, and he sucks while I fuck his face the way I wanted to, stroking himself with his free hand.

The sight of it sends me reeling. I slide my hands down the sides of his face until they're wrapped around his throat and squeeze.

Tate sputters, his face turning red as he loses oxygen. I know when to stop, but I'm so close, I don't want to.

His hand rolls over my hip, wrapping around me until his fingers slip inside my ass, applying pressure in just the right place while I fuck his face, maintaining the same brutal pace, and I explode, coming hard down his throat. When I finally pull out, he swallows before collapsing on his back with his hard cock still in his hand, gasping for air, licking his lips clean when the color comes back to his face.

I take over stroking his dick, wrapping my fist tightly around his base before sliding it upward over the thick tip and back down again.

"Tomorrow," he groans, still trying to catch his breath. "Tomorrow, I want to do it, and I want you to help me. I think I'd like to use a knife. Fuck…"

"That could get messy," I tell him.

"I want it to be messy—fuck, that feels good. Lick it…please. Put your mouth on it."

I grip the base, licking up and down the length of him while he squirms before swallowing his cock.

"Oh, yes," he whimpers with relief. "Oh, fuck, that feels good. Shit."

I taste his cum on my tongue before he thrusts up into my mouth.

"Then I want to fuck next to the body," he grunts as his eyes roll back in his head and spurts of cum hit the back of my throat. "Ah, fuck. I want to look into their cold, dead eyes while I fuck your mouth. I want to feel like a god."

The next day, we went for a walk and found a man ice fishing on the lake. Tate approached him, started asking him a lot of questions about ice fishing, and found out he was also the kind of person no one would notice was missing: no job, divorced, no living relatives, and a criminal record. He always spent Christmas out here alone, and it would be a while before anyone looked for him, if they ever did.

Tate stabbed him through the eye. He flopped around on the ice for a while, just like the fish he'd pulled from beneath its surface, before he died. When he finally stopped, I sucked him off like he wanted, and we dropped him through the hole in the ice. Tate was ecstatic, but on the way home, complained thatman's winter gear made for a less than optimal experience. He would have liked to stab the soft parts—would have preferred it to be messier, to see more blood.

"Next time," he promised.

I explained to him all the logistical reasons we couldn't just go around killing people, and he assured me he wouldn't—not unless someone really deserved it.

We've had to have that same talk several times since, and yet, here we are, looking for someone who won't be missed again. Sure, there's a purpose behind it, but I know part of that purpose is just to scratch an itch. I wish I could say that I didn't want to scratch it, too, but I can't. And so, I drive well under the speed limit down the scenic byway in the dark, looking for trailheads with low traffic where someone maybe didn't make it back before nightfall.

"Whoa, slow down," Tate says. "Over there."

I pull the car off to the side of the road, parking beside a pickup truck and an old, faded trailhead sign.

Glacier Falls Loop: 2.4 miles.