Page 7 of Executing Malice (Jefferson Rejects #4)

My fingers curl around the mouse and I drag up my connecting program. I set it up several weeks back on a whim but haven’t had a reason to use it. Sure as fuck have a reason now as I link my system to her phone and tap in .

“When have I teased you?” the male voice drawls lazily into the receiver.

A slick heat prickles under my skin.

The kind that makes my knuckles itch to drive into the owner’s face until even dental records can’t identify him.

Whoever he is, his voice is deep, a primal rumble that comes with confidence and the comfort of speaking to someone familiar.

There’s a smirk in his tone that grates my nerves.

It gives the image of a square-jawed douche reclined on some leather armchair, feet kicked up, one hand curled around a whiskey tumbler.

Meanwhile, Leila’s smiling like it’s okay for her to talk to some other guy while standing naked in her bedroom. Talk to him like she’s hoping he’ll tell her to fall back on the bed and cum for him. Her grinning mouth is making my temples pound.

“Uh, just last week when you were supposed to come over,” she sasses back as she stalks to the dresser and yanks open the third drawer. “This is the exact promise you used then, too.”

She was supposed to have some guy over last week?

Why can’t I think? Maybe because every alarm bell in my head is screaming mine, mine, mine so loud it’s drowning out all other reason. Maybe because I can taste the bitter tang of my own blood as it fills my mouth.

My fingers twitch towards the keyboard and fly over the plastic buttons.

One command and I could torch his entire world to the ground.

I can erase his entire existence. Wipe his socials.

Wipe his bank account. I can hack into his fucking computer and download enough weird porn to get him committed.

It wouldn’t take much. I can trace his phone, zero in on his location, and show up in the night with a carving knife.

I could cut out his eyes, the ones he used to look at my Leila, put them in a jar of his own piss and gift them to his mother.

I’m already shaking as I drive my fingers across the board, pulling up program after program, booting up my tracking software while he chuckles in Leila’s ear and promises her he hadn’t meant to break their date.

Their date.

I suck in a slow, barely controlled breath.

I’m going to find him.

I won’t kill him. That would be too kind. Too easy. I want him to beg for death, beg the Gods and heaven for mercy as I make him regret the day he ever set eyes on my Leila. I will make him regret thinking he has any right to hear her laugh. See her smile.

Make her fucking smile.

I start to my feet, eyes on the spiral of green roaming across a map of Jefferson, triangulating his location.

My mind is already running the thin edge of my switchblade down his cock until the appendage is a splayed flower in four pieces curling in towards his pelvis.

I’m already imagining how to fish down his esophagus to hook his intestines and drag them up through his mouth.

Maybe through his ass to feed back through his mouth.

I’m deliberating lemon juice and salt over the beautifully spread penis like some oyster platter when my computer pings. The scan’s complete.

Okay, mother fucker. Let’s see who I’m going to visit tonight.

I have to blink past the haze of crimson to read the name.

Reed Weir.

Fuck.

The murderous fury fizzles out like a broken sparkler. Just dies in its conception.

Well, this is awkward.

I lower myself gingerly back into my chair, ears burning.

Humiliation swells beneath my skin as I realize I was about to dismember her .

.. I am not calling him her brother. That’s not his title.

He didn’t earn it. Didn’t bleed for it. But the guy she knows.

Do I trust him? Fuck no. But I won’t kill him . .. yet.

I rub a hand down my face, tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling, letting the shame settle like ashes while Leila continues to chatter on about sushi and a Silent Hills marathon.

By the time they hang up, I’m mildly less homicidal, even less embarrassed, but actively invested all over again as Leila scoops up a T-shirt from the dresser and heads in the direction of the bathroom.

Still topless. Still breathtaking in just her panties.

Long, toned legs graceful. Ass perfect and round swaying with every stride.

Her tits give just enough bounce to make me forget all about that phone call and relax.

The chair creaks beneath me with the shifting of my weight as I reach down and grip my cock. Squeeze it through the soft material of my cargos. The piercings tug with just the right amount of pain to curl the fire in my belly and I ease my hold.

Two and a half months ago when I first moved into the attic of her house, I worried she might hear me.

There isn’t much insulation, but she hasn’t yet.

Maybe she thinks the creaks and groans are just the house settling.

That’s what a normal person might think.

What else could it be in a town like Jefferson where people don’t even lock their fucking doors?

I don’t care how many times I say it, it’s an insane mentality in this day and age. The town is a criminal’s wet dream.

But other people aren’t my problem. The only person who matters is Leila.

Obviously, it’s a good thing I’m here looking out for her.

Her other brother clearly doesn’t give a shit.

If someone left a bloody apple and razor blade on my watch, I wouldn’t stop until I’ve added their teeth to my collection.

This fucker has no idea what’s happening in Leila’s life.

Then he has the audacity to cancel plans with her.

Like what in his pathetic life is more important than spending time with her?

Useless.

He doesn’t deserve her.

None of them do.

Unbothered and unaware, Leila stops at the counter where I cut myself for her mere hours before and examines her face. She tilts it from side to side, picks at an imperfection along her jaw, sighs.

I settle back in my chair and watch her.

Something about the simple routine of brushing her hair, washing her face soothes me.

It’s so ... normal. So familiar. I wonder if she remembers all the times I’d sit on the toilet seat and watch her.

She’d laugh and tell me I was weird, but being close to her calmed me in a way I never understood.

She half bends over the sink as she brushes her teeth. The tiny, nearly pinprick of a camera lens is fixed in the light fixture just above the mirror, giving me a clear shot of her face and the firm swells of her breasts as they bounce and jiggle freely with every twitch of her arm.

They graze the ledge of the sink as she leans in to spit and gather water in her mouth to rinse.

She finishes her nighttime skin routine with the same unhurried pace, removes her panties that get discarded in the hamper, draws on her top and returns to the bedroom. She climbs into bed, long legs slip across cool sheets. She settles in and I wait.

There are several things she no longer does the same. Habits she cast aside along with me. But sleeping with her pussy bare and available for me is still part of her routine.

I relish in it even as jealousy prickles, wondering if she’s done this for another man. If she welcomed his fingers and tongue, even his cock inside her while she continued to sleep, blissfully unaware.

For me, it was a comfort thing. Sleeping with her warmth closed around me was my equivalent of sucking my thumb. It soothed me.

The fact that she still waits for me only amps the sweet thrum of torture in my cock.

She’s always been quick to sleep. To fill the room with the quiet whisper of her breathing. Even years later, I recognize the moment it changes, and I know it’s safe to leave my hole.

I keep my shoes off as I descend the rolling ladder into the puddles of shadows stretching across the hallway. I leave it down in case I need to run up quickly. I haven’t in the last month but why mess with a good thing?

Despite every nerve in my body needing to go to her, to crawl into bed behind her and drag her into my chest, I slip into the bathroom instead to leave my second gift.

Granted, she’s not going to know about it, but I will.

Every morning when she takes a shower, every night when she puts on her lotions, I’ll know it’s me she’s massaging into all that beautiful skin.

Shivering with anticipation, I tug myself free, careful not to catch the row of piercings on my waistband.

The cool air kisses the column of steel balls beneath my shaft.

They gleam along their perfectly aligned tracks, matching the crossed barbells speared through the fat, purple head.

The sweet pressure has my breath coming out in a shallow huff.

My cock pangs with the swelling. The sting of pain that only heightens the pleasure as I stroke.

The glide of metal against skin, the friction of beads sliding under my palm with every pass has me biting back a moan.

It fills my head with images of filling Leila, stretching her pretty cunt to take every bar.

Watching her struggle and buck as I slam home again and again, driving deeper until she’s screaming and thrashing.

I’m still caught in the lure of her web when I step over to the sink and the neat row of tubes and bottles tucked into one corner. Each one is placed in perfect order. I’ve watched her use them a hundred times and replace it in the exact same spot.

I reach for her jar of moisturizer. A glass pot with a white lid that comes undone easily with a few twists of my hand.

The cream is thick and white. Nearly to the top but used enough to show a tiny decline.

I know she bought it two weeks ago and uses it twice a day.

Rubs it gently in circular motions across her soft cheeks and down the curve of her slender throat.