Page 18 of Lonely (Wellard Asylum #4)

TWELVE

C arter looked over at me when I entered the living room with two bottles of beer and a shot for us each. I handed him one, and he sniffed it.

“Damn, this is strong stuff. Are you trying to poison me? Get me drunk so you can take advantage?”

He smirked playfully, and I returned his smile, throwing back the shot and wiping my mouth. He did the same, grimacing.

I placed the empty shot glasses on the coffee table and handed him his beer. It was weird to have him here in my space, outside of Wellard.

The first time I saw him from my window, they had pulled him out of the police car, handcuffed. He’d looked around at the woods, the manicured lawns, and finally, Wellard asylum.

I knew what he’d seen: the turrets, the tall windows, the thick clouds overhead, and the crows huddled on the roof. Wings tucked close to their bodies.

An officer had said something to him and led him forward. Carter had looked up, and I swore he’d seen me watching him.

We clinked bottles and swigged our beer. I couldn’t look away, but he was watching me, too, and I enjoyed how it felt when he studied me, like I made him hungry for something.

I broke the silence. “Are you going to run away?”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed down his beer. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m not going back to that place.”

No, I wanted him here with me. He wasn’t going anywhere.

The cold beer slid down my throat as I took another large swig, suddenly parched.

Carter put the empty beer bottle on the coffee table. “I won’t be leaving here, will I?”

I didn’t see the point in lying. With the bottleneck pressed to my lips, I shook my head. “No, you won’t.”

A humorless chuckle escaped him as he dragged his teeth over his bottom lip. “I’m walking out that door, old man. You can’t stop me.”

My eyes dropped down his body and back, and I felt myself grow hard and achy for him. He said he wanted to leave, but the look in his eyes told a different story.

He was here, wasn’t he? Carter hungered for something, and I wanted to find out what.

“If you want me to stay, you have to fight me, and we know how that went last time.”

There it was. A filthy, erotic smirk. The kind that made my heart thud harder.

I swore my ass tingled in response.

My beer was empty, so I put it down next to his. Carter’s eyes burned into the side of my face.

I turned to face him, undoing my belt and pulling down my zipper. “We had a deal.”

The dimple in his cheek grew deeper. He said nothing, but then he dropped his gaze to my hands, and I shoved down the front of my pants and briefs.

The cold air hit my balls as he wetted his lips.

I’d never been this aroused before.

Carter rubbed the corner of his mouth with his thumb, still staring at my erection when I wrapped my hand around my achy length.

“We had a deal,” I repeated, stroking it slowly from root to tip. “I’ve been patient. I’ve played by your rules.”

“You are fucking desperate, aren’t you?” he mocked, but I wasn’t offended by the cruel amusement in his voice because I’d happily sacrifice my pride for a taste of his submission.

“For you, yes.”

When he looked at me, the color in his eyes darkened to the deepest shade of emerald. It was mysterious and frightening, like a dark cave mouth in the forest.

I’d get endlessly lost if I weren’t careful.

He dropped to his knees, grabbed the backs of my thighs, and stared up at me. I released a shaky breath, my legs like jelly.

“I won’t stay,” he said, gliding his warm hands higher up my legs.

Time slowed as he leaned in. With his eyes on me to ensure I watched this, he wrapped his big, veiny hand around my cock and pumped once.

My knees almost buckled at the sudden jolt of pleasure. A ragged gasp tore from my throat as I fisted a handful of his dark hair.

Carter was only just getting started with his delicious brand of torture.

I watched with bated breath as he circled his tongue around the weeping head. I wanted to shove my cock down his throat, but I also wanted to prolong this for as long as I could. So I watched.

Watched him toy with me, tracing the veins on my dick with his tongue and peppering kisses up my shaft.

Watched him blow on the tip and slowly take me into his mouth.

So fucking slowly.

My fingers trembled in his hair and I panted out a “Fuck.”

He hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard. Everything he did was purposeful, not rushed, as though he took pleasure in seeing me crumble before him.

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” I said, barely able to control the shake in my voice.

Like me, he was a killer.

A predator.

And predators stalked.

They observed and calculated.

He took me deeper, swirling his wicked tongue, and then released me with a wet pop before trailing his flattened tongue up the underside of my shaft.

“More,” I grunted, applying pressure to his head.

But he just chuckled as he grabbed my ass and pulled me closer. The moment he sucked me back into his heavenly mouth, I dropped my head back with a deep groan. This was what I’d always wanted. His mouth on me again.

To feel powerful.

“Yes . . .” I looked down at him on his knees, my cock in his mouth and my hands in his hair. I pumped my hips, and he let me.

Sweat trickled down my back and dampened my shirt. Carter gagged when I hit the back of his throat, but I didn’t slow down. My breaths came quicker, my hips stuttered, and my fingers pulled harder on his hair.

I was about to come.

An electric torrent of violent shivers raced along my spine.

I wet my lips, chasing the pleasure as he gagged again.

Such a good boy.

I always knew he would be.

They all were eventually.

They just had to lose hope first. But when they did . . . when they realized I was their last hope— their only hope —they became such good patients. So willing to please me and give me anything I asked for because they thought I would lower my guard.

“You’re hot on your knees,” I praised. “You pretend you don’t like it. But you do.”

The pleasure became too much. A groan rumbled in my chest and I fisted his hair, spilling down his throat.

When I released him, he sat back on his heels and slowly spat my cum out. It dribbled down his chin and the long column of his throat.

He smiled a toothy, cum-filled grin and then laughed, a jagged, unhinged sound that rattled down my spine. Like the patients late at night, when their moaning and whining and shrill laughter echoed through Wellard’s walls.

It was enough to give anyone chills.

I smacked him and gripped his chin. “Stop it.”

But he continued laughing and mocking me with his semen-coated teeth and lips.

I smeared it over his skin as I gripped him harder, determined to hurt him for taunting me, determined to leave his skin as bruised as my fucking ego.

“What do you want now, old man? My ass?” he mocked. “Or my cock in yours?”

Leaning down, I sneered. “I’m going to shut you up for good.”

“Does that mean you’re finally ready to fight me because that’s the only way you’re getting your hands on me again?”

“Such a slut for violence,” I whispered, feeling his scruff beneath my fingers. I shoved him away and then drove my fist into his smug face.

He collapsed to the floor and spat blood as he wiped the corner of his mouth. A chuckle filled the room as he studied his crimson thumb.

Flexing his jaw, he grinned at me—a dark, menacing smile.

A smile that promised death.

“Is that the best you’ve got, Doctor?”

I kicked him square in the face. His head snapped back, but he wasn’t down for long.

He staggered to his feet and rushed me, all 6’3 of him, and we crashed against the wall.

Carter threw me to the floor, then straddled me and rammed his fist into my nose.

Blood gushed and my eyes watered. He laughed again, the same manic, slightly deranged yet delighted sound.

He was enjoying this.

“You’re pathetic, Doctor.” Securing my wrists over my head, he patted me condescendingly on the cheek.

“When was the last time someone put up a fight, huh? Am I the only one? Is that why you can’t get enough?

Is that why you’re such a whore for me? Why you’d crawl like a dog for a taste?

What do you want? Tell me what the fuck you want, old man. ”

“I want your fucking thoughts,” I almost shouted, kicking my legs out on the floor, trying to find some damn purchase so I could throw him off.

“You want my thoughts?” He patted me again. Hard this time. “Here’s a thought for you. I wonder how you’ll look at me when I finally kill you? When I finally get to see the life drain from your eyes.”

I drove my forehead into his with everything I had.

He fell back, crashing to the ground, and it took me a few seconds to realize what the hell had happened.

I cursed as I palmed my pounding forehead and struggled to my feet.

That fucking hurt!

The room spun on its axis.

Catching myself on the bookshelf, I shook my head, trying to clear the haze.

“You’re never leaving me,” I said when he touched his hand to his temple and grimaced in pain. “You’re never walking away from me.”

He glared, and I grabbed the gun from one of the boxes on the bookshelf.

I threw the box to the floor, aimed the weapon at his chest, and pulled back on the hammer. “You’re mine, Carter. I won’t let you go.”

“So, this is what you do?” He got to his feet and stalked closer with his hands on his narrow hips. “I’m not the first, am I?”

“No, but you’re my favorite.”

“Your favorite?” A bitter smile peeked out. “You single out patients to prey on. Seduce them. And if that doesn’t work, you drug and assault them until they’re ready to do anything to get out. Anything.”

He stopped before me and stared into my eyes. The barrel dug into his chest, but he never faltered. “And then you bring them back here and kill them.”

“You were my favorite,” I whispered, my heart pounding in the silence.

“Were,” he noted. “Tomorrow, after you fuck my corpse like you did Andersen’s, you’ll return to work and hunt for a new target.” He slowly sank to his knees. “But you’ll never find another me. No one will fight you like I will. No one else will make you feel alive.”

With my heart in my throat, I pressed the gun to his forehead, between his brows.

My dick grew hard at the look in his eyes. The others had been scared, but Carter smirked at me like he had a secret, something I didn’t know. Even at the brink of death, he challenged me.

“What are you thinking about, Carter?”

One hand glided up my leg and cupped me through my pants. “Shoot me.”

I hummed, dragging the gun across his temple and down his cheek before using it to tip his chin. “Are you scared?”

“Of an old, pathetic man like you?” His smile was mesmerizing.

I have a secret.

My cock filled with blood and I wanted to do so many filthy things to him.

“I don’t fear you because I know how this ends,” he said. “I knew this day would come.”

His emerald eyes gleamed.

“You think I’m playing to your tune, but no. All this time, you played to mine.”

In one smooth motion, he pulled a scalpel from his pocket and severed my Achilles heel, swiping the blade quickly across the back of my ankle as he lifted my pant leg.

Faster than I could react.

A searing pain spread through me as I collapsed to the floor, and a guttural scream filled the room. Panting, I pressed my hand to the torn tendon, trying not to pass out.

A river of blood pooled beneath me as Carter snatched the dropped gun and aimed it at me.

He pulled the trigger, and the bullet tore into my shoulder.

My body jolted from the impact and I clutched the wound, gazing up at him as blood gushed between my fingers.

Carter squatted down, elbows on his thighs. “Nurse Charlotte is more than a pretty face.” He inspected the bloodied scalpel. “She’s forgetful and easy to distract, especially when she’s on her back.”

Fucking typical. She would lose her damn cunt if it weren’t attached to her.

“How does it feel to have been played at your own game?” He pocketed the scalpel and dug the gun into my cheek. “To have been preyed on.”

“Honestly?” Sharp pain blazed up my leg from my ankle, while my shoulder throbbed with a dull, pulsing ache. “Euphoric! I always knew it would be you who’d set me free, Carter. I knew it the moment I first laid eyes on you.”

“Are you not scared? I’m going to shoot you in the head, and then I’m going to walk out of here.” He pistol-whipped me, and I groaned painfully, chuckling.

I should be scared. Hell, I was the hunted for once. I was the monster in the bear trap, but Carter was a damn insane vision, and I wanted to die at his hand. Wanted him to unleash the horror that I knew resided inside him.

The horror behind three innocent men’s brutal deaths.

And the same horror would be unleashed on the world when he walked out of here.

But I have a secret of my own . . .

“What the fuck are you smiling at?” he spat, digging the gun into my temple. “You’re about to die, you sick fuck. And then you’ll be nothing but a distant, insignificant memory. Someone I used as a means to an end.”

“I want you to suck my cock like a good boy,” I taunted, just to get a reaction out of him. “You do it so well.”

“Motherfucker!” He stood up, spat on me, and then extended his arm.

I stared into the gun barrel, then the young man behind it, whose forest eyes simmered when he smirked. I always knew he was too good to be true. He would always be my destruction.

His dimples grew deeper, a lock of dark hair resting between his brows.

“I’m walking out of here,” he said.

I matched his smirk, gaze flashing to the discarded shot glasses and back. “It’s already too late. You belong to me.”

BANG!