Page 54

FIFTY-FOUR

AMETHYST

No. I can’t let this happen. Not in the dirt. Not on the grave where I buried Jake’s corpse. Not with Xero still furious at me for a litany of sins.

Xero promised me a room. A bed. A kitchenette. We were supposed to eat red velvet cake and sip Armagnac. He was going to take me slowly, kiss each inch of my skin until my toes curled.

He wasn’t supposed to fuck me on top of his own grave.

I throw back my head, managing only to hit Xero’s cheekbone. With a snarl, he pushes my face into the earth. Soil invades my nostrils, slips through my lips, and rolls onto my tongue. I want to jerk free, but I can’t break out from under his weight.

“Xero,” I scream, the sound muffled. “I can’t breathe.”

The rest of his body pins mine to the ground. I rock from side to side, trying to throw him off, but that only lodges that impossibly thick erection between my clothed ass cheeks.

Heaven help me. I can’t take that kind of girth.

Gripping my hair, he jerks my head to the side, finally allowing me to breathe. The leather of his hood brushes against my cheek as I gasp for air.

“Don’t do this,” I say. “Not here.”

“You swore to devote yourself to me until the end of days,” he snarls, rolling his hips into mine. “But the moment I was announced dead, you performed for an audience on social media. I thought you’d visit the next morning. Even the day after. Then you disappeared across town and forgot my name.”

“What difference does it make?” I scream. “You’re not even dead.”

“Oh, but I am, my little ghost?—”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap.

“What do you prefer? Clout chaser? Runaway bride? Mercenary little murderer?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t also use me,” I snarl.

He laughs, the sound so maniacal that my heart skips several beats. The thick shaft pushing into my ass jerks with the force of his bitter mirth.

Sweat breaks out across my brow. Is this the laugh he made when the police caught him tearing out his stepmother’s heart? Will he even leave me intact? Shivering, I freeze beneath his larger body, realizing the foolishness of inciting a madman.

Because there’s no doubt about it.

Xero Greaves is insane.

“Used you?” he says, his voice a low snarl. “Before I replied to your letter, you were a sleepy little dormouse so subdued by prescription drugs that you didn’t know if you were alive or dead.”

I don’t reply because he’s right. It takes a moment like this, where my blood runs hot and cold, to realize that I was overmedicated.

“Now that I’m officially dead, it’s only fitting that I fuck you on my grave.”

A scream tears from my lips, which has him grinding that thick cock into my ass. I reach between our bodies, trying to grab it, but I can’t even graze it with my finger.

“Dirty girl. You want this.”

“Fuck off.” I clench my teeth, not wanting to give him any kind of satisfaction.

“Oh, I’ll be fucking, alright.” He grabs the waistband of my leggings and yanks them down to my knees. “This sweet little pussy is mine.”

“No— ”

He slips his fingers beneath the lace of my panties and over my slick folds. Then he groans to find me aroused. “What’s this?”

“Nothing,” I snap, my hips jerking away from his touch.

He slides a thick finger into my opening, rubbing against pleasure centers that light up my nerves like fireworks. “You’re so wet.”

I swallow back a moan. That’s because my traitorous pussy hasn’t gotten the memo that we’re in the presence of a mass murderer. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Women get yeast infections?—”

He silences me with a hard spank that sends a sting straight to my clit. “Lie to me all you want. That will only earn you a punishment. But your body screams the truth.”

“You’re wrong. I?—”

“Suck it.” He brings his wet finger to my mouth before I can finish my denial.

“What?” I whisper.

“Lick your arousal off my fingers.”

“Or what?”

“I can fuck you all night, keep you on the edge, bring you to the brink of orgasm and never let you come. If you don’t submit to my commands, I’ll make you so frustrated you’ll beg for death.”

Somehow, I don’t think he’s talking about la pétite mort.

Parting my lips, I take in his finger and let him slide it into my mouth. Even if I didn’t see it glistening, there’s no denying the arousal, especially when he’s rubbing it against my tongue.

I clench my jaw, sinking my teeth into the digit, but all that does is make him moan.

“What are you?” I say around his finger. “A masochist?”

“Only if you’re the one giving me the pain. Since you like biting so much, I’ll add that to the list of things I’ll do when I fuck you in the dirt.”

My jaw relaxes, and he pulls out of my mouth.

Drawing back to give me space, he says, “Raise those fucking hips, little ghost. Let me see that pretty little cunt under the light of the moon.”

“No. ”

“Very well.”

His body weight shifts. When I glance over my shoulder, he reaches into his leather coat and pulls out a twelve-inch knife.

“What the fuck?” I crawl on my belly, trying to get away, my pussy grazing the blades of grass, but he grabs the fabric gathered between my knees and cuts it loose.

Advancing on me, he places a heavy hand between my shoulder blades and cuts through the back of my hoodie and tank top. Cool metal slides across my skin as he divests me of my clothes.

Terror races through my veins, cold and sharp. The sensation gathers in the pulse behind my aching clit. This isn’t normal. No part of my body should find this situation exciting, but the bundle of nerves between my legs throbs in time with my pounding heart.

“This is the same blade I used to remove that bastard’s fingers and the other bastard’s tongue,” he says so casually that I can’t help but interpret his words as a threat.

Shivers seize my spine, but I force my body to hold still. The last thing I need is for Xero’s knife to slice through my skin.

He cuts the fabric, exposing my back to the elements and making me tremble. Then he rolls me over so I’m lying face-up and straddles my hips.

Shoving at his immovable thighs, I stare up into the depths of his hood. Moonlight lights him from behind, casting his face in complete shadow. At this angle, I can’t see anything apart from his pale irises.

“Won’t you let me see your face?” I ask.

“And ruin this for your mask kink?” he replies.

I regret the day that bastard convinced me to fill out that sex contract. “You weren’t supposed to take it literally,” I snap. “It was for phone sex.”

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.

No. A thousand times, no. But I don’t want to admit to wanting to be destroyed by this murdering maniac.

He pauses, the flat of his blade hovering over my belly. I’m naked from the waist down, if you don’t count my shins, which are still encased in leggings, and my hoodie is now backless. He could fuck me if he wanted, or he could yank off the rest of my clothes from the front, but he doesn’t make a move.

“What are you doing?” I ask through ragged breaths.

“I told you how I felt about the silent no,” he says.

My nostrils flare. “Where was the silent no when you were shoving body parts under my pillow? Or all those times you edged me in my nightmares and wouldn’t let me come? God, you’re such a hypocrite.”

He holds the knife to my throat. “Watch your tongue, little ghost. I’m not above taking it as a trophy.”

“Then who would suck your cock?” I snap.

“I never said I wouldn’t take your throat,” he replies with a harsh chuckle.

My hand snaps up to snatch the mask off his face, but he grabs my wrist and pins it above my head. The hand holding the knife takes the other, joining them together. I thrash from side to side, trying to buck him off.

How did I ever allow myself to be fooled by his life story? Xero isn’t a kindred spirit. He’s just a savage who wants me to beg.

Raising my chin, I glare up into those fake irises. “Go on, then. Do it.”

After slicing through what’s left of my clothes, he drags me across the dirt, stopping directly beneath the Grim Reaper. Cool earth slides beneath my overheated flesh, making me shiver. Just when I think he’ll take me face to face, he rolls me onto my front. The breeze slides over my bare back, which is already damp with dew. Then, my skin tightens into goosebumps.

Cold realization seeps into my bones as I realize that the funeral I missed would have required something to have been buried.

“Is this grave empty?” I ask.

“No.” He kicks open my thighs, exposing my pussy to the elements.

“Is it the man I buried?”

“No.” He slides his fingers over my wet folds .

“Xero.” I gulp, my body trembling with anticipation. “Who’s buried beneath us?”

“Someone who deserved to die.”

He enters me from behind with a hard thrust that stretches my pussy beyond its limit. Pleasure and pain battle over control of my senses, and I let out a guttural scream.

Not just because he lied about the dildo being lifelike. It’s not even because he doesn’t give my inner muscles a moment to adjust to his impossible girth. He’s longer, thicker, and the piercings don’t feel like silicone.

“I knew you would be tight, but this is incredible,” he groans.

“Oh,” I moan through panting breaths. “You’re so big.”

He pulls out, and my muscles clamp around his girth, desperate to keep him in place. “So sweet. So wet. I’ve been waiting to fuck you like this for months.”

The thought of being taken on the final resting place of a stranger is even more freaky than climaxing to the video of Big Dick Johnson’s murder.

Xero grips my hips, delivering a hard thrust that has me seeing stars.

I raise my head and thrash my upper body, trying to move us to the empty spot at least three feet to the right. “Xero–”

He shoves my face into the dirt and fucks me hard and fast, like a rabid beast that’s been starved of sex. I flail my arms, clawing at the damp earth, trying to gain a semblance of control. He’s too heavy, too strong, and the pleasure he’s infusing into my body is too powerful to resist.

He growls into my ear. “How does it feel, being fucked on top of a stranger's grave? Knowing that the dead are watching us?”

I scream into the dirt, my heart slamming into its cage with the force of a pickaxe. Soil seeps into my nostrils, coating my lips and the inner membranes of my mouth.

“Tell me how good it feels,” Xero demands, increasing his pace as I moan into the soil.

Each time I catch my breath, Xero knocks it out of me with a brutal thrust.

“That's right,” Xero snarls. “Let it all out. Show these dead bastards what they’re missing. ”

“Fuck,” I say with a gasp, my pussy tightening with an approaching orgasm.

This is a thousand times more intense than our phone sex when Xero would tell me what he wanted to do to me if he ever broke free from prison. One of his fantasies involved chasing me through a forest and fucking me in the mud.

His filthy words had gotten me aroused and wet beyond reason. Then he ordered me to pleasure myself with that dildo, and I came apart.

Xero continues his relentless pace, that long, thick cock driving into my core. He fucks me with no mercy, no restraint, as though unleashing every ounce of sexual frustration that built up during his time behind bars.

His grunts are raw and animalistic, matching the fury of his thrusts. The heat of his body presses down on my hips as he pounds me into the earth.

Without warning, he grabs the back of my hair and yanks my head off the ground. I open my eyes and take a noisy breath.

I gaze up at the memorial statue, where moonlight shines down on the angel of death and glints on the sharp blade of his scythe. The grinning skeleton stares down at us through hollow eyes devoid of compassion.

“Do you see him?” he asks.

“Who?” I ask through a haze of pleasure.

“Look around, Amethyst,” he growls, ramming into my pussy with a brutal thrust. “Who do you see?”

“N-nothing. No one.”

“Good girl.” He pushes my head back into the dirt.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember something he once said about chasing away my hallucinations. I never thought that was possible until now.

Tears gather in the corners of my eyes as I’m struck with the realization. This is the first time I’ve been with a man where I haven’t seen Mr. Lawson.

I exhale a sob, wondering if any of this is really happening. This could be a fever dream. A compound hallucination brought to life. How many books have I read where the main character’s mind was trapped in a delusion, only for the doctor to appear in the final chapter at the twist ending?

“You’re mine, little ghost,” Xero growls, his deep voice cutting through my spiraling thoughts. “Mine until the end of time.”

Deluded people don’t conjure up liars who fake their own deaths, haunt innocent women, fuck them in graveyards, then give them annoying nicknames.

Don’t they?

Xero switches up his strokes, his Prince Albert piercing rubbing against a spot that ignites sparks of pleasure. They build in intensity, coursing through my system with volts of electricity.

My fingers curl into fists, gathering handfuls of graveyard dirt. I grind back into him, chasing the pleasure. He presses into me, his hot breath ghosting against my skin.

“Mine,” he growls into my ear. “Who do you belong to?”

“Fuck off,” I scream, my words muffled by the soil.

“Choose your words wisely, little ghost. After all, I’m the one in control of your orgasm.” Chuckling, he pulls out and rolls me onto my back.

Dark spots dance in my vision, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. He stares down at me with those pale, pitiless irises, and pulls my knees up to my chest. How is it fair that I’m completely naked, save for a few scraps of torn fabric, and he’s fully clothed?

“I’m not a?—”

His thick cock drives so deeply into my core that it knocks out my air. The thrusts become forceful, the rhythm bordering on frantic, as he fucks me like a feral beast.

“I said, I’m not?—”

He thrusts into me so deeply that I feel every ridge, every piercing, every thick vein of his shaft. I lose track of what the hell I wanted to say. As he quickens his pace, my tits bounce with the violence of his movements. His weight crushes my lungs, and it takes every effort to breathe.

Pleasure spirals up from my center, growing in intensity until it feels like it’s me who got the electric chair.

“Do you want to come?” he asks, his thumb grazing over my clit .

“Yes,” I moan.

“Then who do you belong to?”

“Nobody.”

“Wrong answer.” He pulls back his thumb and changes the angle of his thrusts to deny me the desperately needed relief.

“Who?” he growls into my ear, his voice making my skin tingle with sparks of sensation.

I writhe beneath his large body, trying to create my own friction, but he reaches for my throat.

“Myself,” I scream. “I belong to me.”

“Keep defying your soulmate. I have the rest of our lives.”

I choke at his audacity. Isn’t there some kind of rule that says nothing counts in the heat of the moment? Xero is a fugitive. Not just from the law, but from his criminal father. He can’t seriously expect me to join him on the run.

His fingers tighten, cutting off my air. I gasp in a breath, but it doesn’t reach beyond my throat. My heart races, my vision blurs, and my entire world narrows until there’s only him and the night sky.

“Who. Do. You. Belong. To?” His deep voice seeps through the muffled roar between my ears.

“Me.”

Xero’s weight crushes mine further into the dirt, adding to the intoxicating sensation of surrender. If he gripped any tighter, he would snuff out my life, and the thought of him fucking me to my dying breath makes every nerve ending light up like fireworks.

I’m weightless, dizzy, and I swear that the stars grow brighter. As I claw at his gloved hand, they morph into a brilliant galaxy.

“Say it,” he snarls.

My lungs burn, my pulse beats wildly against his fingers, and I gasp for non-existent air. He fucks into me with the kind of wild abandon that makes me think this could be our last.

Each movement brings me closer to the edge. My body is aflame, consumed by his touch. My mind races with fear and confusion, but amid the chaos, I come to a realization. Xero is here, alive and driven—not by a desire for my destruction but by a soul-deep obsession. He’s dangerous, unhinged, but his madness is rooted in a sick kind of love .

As he drives me to the brink of ecstasy, I revel in the intensity of his feelings. In the notion that he can’t let me go.

Something shifts inside my psyche, and fear mingles with dark exhilaration. In this terrifying game, I’m not just a pawn—I’m his queen. He shows his love through this twisted devotion. The boundary between terror and desire crumbles, leaving behind an inexplicable need to match his intensity, to prove the ferocity of my devotion.

The sickest part of me rejoices that Xero wants me so badly, he’d risk my life. The man who set social media alight, who pledged himself to me over hundreds and thousands of others, chose me. Not as his victim or prey, but as the woman he wanted to make his wife. Despite the danger and madness, my chest swells with a twisted sense of pride.

In a world where I felt invisible, Xero saw and desired me above all others.

It’s a dark, twisted love, but it’s mine.

“Amethyst,” he snarls. “Answer me.”

“You,” I say with a gasp.

“What did you say?” he barks, his hips pumping with punishing force.

“You,” I rasp. “I. Belong. To. Xero.”

He releases his grip on my throat, and I draw in a noisy breath.

The extra oxygen stokes the flames of my arousal. My body jerks and spasms at his relentless thrusts, but his rhythm doesn’t falter.

“Come for me, little ghost,” he says, his voice raw with need. “Make that tight little cunt ripple around my cock.”

My climax comes like a wildfire that sets my body ablaze. I convulse on the dirt, my back arching as sensations consume my system. My walls tighten around his thick shaft, and I’m flooded with mind-numbing bliss.

Xero's ragged breaths brush against my skin, his pleasure palpable. My pussy spasms around his cock, trying to milk him of his cum. Just as I’m sure he’s on the brink of climaxing, he raises a hand and presses his palm into my face. The pungent scent of chemicals invades my nostrils and overwhelms my senses. Alarm rings through my ears. Why does this feel so familiar? Is this chloroform?

I struggle against unconsciousness, but my eyelids grow heavy. As I succumb to darkness, that deep voice rattles through my skull.

“Sleep, little ghost. I’ll be there when you wake up.”