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Chapter Thirteen

Briar

T he next few weeks pass in a whirlwind. Because I didn’t have a lot of time saved up, I was forced to return to work. The first few days were scary. Each time I returned home, I expected to find the couch empty and his things gone. After the first week, I finally started to relax.

We’ve been watching the cams every day. The feed comes complete with audio, so the meetings between the lawyers and Gloria’s sister—who is tapped to inherit her estate and children—have provided tons of information. Our greatest fear was that the sister would break into the safe and take any valuables before we had a chance to formulate a plan, but she seems to be the complete opposite of Gloria in every possible way. Instead of combing the house for financial gain, she’s devoted most of her time to the children.

That’s good for them, and Grey and I have both discussed how his actions have actually made their lives better. Even though he didn’t kill her for their sakes, they still reaped the benefits. I would never speak this thought aloud, but I like to imagine that those two children are our way of ensuring the babies who were stolen from us get to live on.

As for the relationship between me and Grey, I don’t know where we stand. We haven’t had sex since that one night, but the longing looks are there. Sometimes I catch him watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I’m thankful he hasn’t caught me watching him.

In the shower.

When he’s sleeping.

Once when he was beating his dick while standing in front of the sink.

I’m not proud of myself, but I’ve developed a bit of an obsession. Too bad it isn’t reciprocated. I fucked that up when I pushed him to talk.

Things have been different since that moment in the woods. I expected him to be weirded out or possibly scared of me after learning I murdered my ex, but I’ve been the one pussyfooting around. I don’t want to lose him, even though that’s the end goal. After we complete the job next week, he’ll hop on a plane and fly to safety.

“Nothing’s changed, has it?” I say as I set a steaming mug of decaf coffee in front of him at the kitchen table. “I mean, she’s still planning to take the kids out of town for a few days, right?”

Grey taps the computer screen. “That painting has been moved. Look at it.”

My eyebrows pull together as I look at the image. This camera points down a hallway, at the end of which hangs a massive painting of a black butterfly. The gold frame looks mildly askew, but I’m not sure why that matters.

“Maybe someone bumped it,” I offer, but Grey shakes his head and taps the screen again.

“I thought that too, but when I went back through the footage from earlier today, I realized we’re missing a chunk of time. Someone patched in footage from a different video from three p.m. to three fifteen.”

“Who would do that? And why?”

He leans closer to the screen. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

I sit in a chair and scoot closer so that I can see the screen as well. Our shoulders touch, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Meanwhile, I revel in the closeness. His nose twitches, and he turns his head to face me.

“You, um . . . you smell nice.”

I smile at him. “Thanks.”

This is what we’ve been reduced to. Awkward compliments and stolen glances.

“New perfume?” he asks.

“No. I tried a new lotion, but I think it’s drying out my skin.” I hold my arm toward him, and he runs his fingertips over the fine reddish-blonde hairs.

“Feels pretty soft to me.” He swallows, then clears his throat. “It smells good too.”

“You said that already.”

“Right.”

I scoot my chair away so that we aren’t touching. Apparently, being too close to him scrambles his fucking brain. I’d have considered it a compliment, my ability to intimidate a murderer, but I don’t want to intimidate him. I want to seduce him.

“I know the job is still a week out and we’re supposed to focus, but I’m struggling with that,” I say. “Can we talk about this?”

“What? The job? Yeah, of course.”

“No, Grey. Not the job.” I grip the seat of his chair and spin him away from the laptop so that he’s forced to look at me. “I’m sorry I essentially forced you to talk about what happened, but that was weeks ago. Will you ever let it go?”

His dark eyebrows pull together, and he looks more confused than I feel. “Let it go? I’m not holding on to anything.”

I take his hand and place it on my breast, and he pulls away as if I’ve held his palm against a blazing stovetop.

“See!” I shout. “My tits weren’t so undesirable to you before. Now we walk around and pretend we don’t have the hots for each other when we very clearly do. What gives?”

“I don’t want to...” He stops and shakes his head. “Is that what you want? What you really want? You want the man, the complete idiot who signed for a loan and failed to keep his house...That’s the man you want inside you? The failure?”

I nod my head. “In a nutshell, yes. Why is this so hard for you to understand?”

“It’s not hard for me to understand, but we can’t be anything. Haven’t you thought about that? About what happens when we get the money and go our separate ways?”

“No, not really. I’m more of a here-and-now kind of girl. I don’t really think too far ahead. That’s how I’ve ended up with mountains of debt, an impending foreclosure, and a dead ex-boyfriend in the woods. Foresight ain’t my strong suit, dude.”

“Then think about it now,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you, Briar, and that’s what I’ll do if I leave you after I get the money. And I can’t stay.”

He’s right. I really haven’t thought about any of that. Rationally, I know his plan has always been to get out of here, but I’ve never really thought about what that looks like for me, the woman who’s plan has always been to dig in and stay put.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s going to hurt like hell when you leave. I like you, and I’m not afraid to admit it.” I stand and grip the hem of my shirt, then remove it. “It’s a pain I’m willing to endure for a moment of pleasure, though.” I grip my pants and lower them. “What about you, Grey? Is the pleasure worth the pain it causes you?”

He bites his bottom lip and groans as I drop into my chair, spread my legs, and rub my clit through my panties.

“Touch me,” I whisper. “Make me feel good before you hurt me. If you have to leave, then give me something to remember you by.”

“Psycho,” he whispers.

He wants me. I know he does. He knows he does. But something keeps him from admitting it. If it’s his wife, we all have a skeleton. Mine just lives in the backyard.

Then I remember the mask. It helped him before, so maybe it can help him again. I hurry to the bedroom and grab it, then return to the kitchen. Realizing what I hold, he walks over and snatches the fabric from my hand, then puts it on. He takes off his shirt and boxes me in with his strong arms. The tattoos stare back at me. Delinquent. Foreclosure. Everything I’ve felt so intimately myself. It’s as if they’re etched into my own skin.

“No matter how much I want to, you can’t convince me to stay. I’ve been fighting this every day. Being around you is torture, and I don’t want to be weak.” He turns me around and pulls me against his body until his erection grinds against my ass. “But fuck if you don’t make me weak.”

I look back and smirk at him. “Would a weak person commit homicide?”

“Maybe.” He lifts a hand to my face and raises my chin before his fingers trail down my neck. He squeezes my throat. “I could kill you right now, little psycho.”

“But you won’t.”

His pants fall to the floor, and he rips my panties down my thighs. He bends me over the table as his warm, silky cock brushes against my wet slit. He draws back his hips, then pushes inside me on my next inward breath. Fuck, he feels so big from this angle.

“Grey,” I moan.

The table scoots forward as he pounds into me. Once the wooden edge hits the wall and can’t move forward anymore, he puts all that strength through me instead. Every collision of his hips drives me into the table’s edge.

Grey is a kind, broken man, but when he puts on that mask, he’s someone else entirely. Someone capable of the ultimate sin. That’s all I can think about as he reaches around and squeezes my throat.

My brain goes to weird places, like him actually killing me. Keeping me as some weird sex doll he can selfishly use whenever he wants. I want him to be that obsessed with me. As obsessed as I am with him. I would keep his body around too. Not for sex, but to talk about my day with and share stories with until he rots away in my bed.

He’s bad for me. I’m bad for him. And I know damn well that we can’t stay together after this.

“Come back to me, little psycho,” he says. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop it.”

He wraps his arm around my chest and pulls me upright. With one swipe of his powerful arm, he moves the table out of the way and walks me against the wall. I spin in his hold, and his hands lift my thighs and wrap them around his waist. He pulls me out of my mental gymnastics as he pushes himself into me and forces me to look into his beautiful eyes as he rails me.

His fingertips dig into my ass, and his grunts and groans make the walls of my pussy spasm and tighten. His hand drops between us, and he rubs my clit in tight circles. Fuck, it’s electric. The pleasure vibrates the length of my spine as he brings me close to another orgasm.

“I want you to come on my cock again, little psycho. Squeeze every drop from a killer’s dick.”

His fingers work me until I rocket skyward. I scream out as more inhuman sounds wrench from me. My eyes clamp shut, and I lose all control of my body. Every muscle tightens and tenses and pulls a groan from him. He’s coming too, and the stuttering roughness of his hips intensifies.

I’ll get off to this moment for many nights to come.

We finally stop coming, and he pulls his twitching dick from me, then raises the mask. He kisses me as if he’s been waiting this entire time to do exactly that. As if he didn’t want to ruin this moment by shedding his dark identity.

“What were you thinking about before?” he asks, his wet cock resting against my pussy.

“What it will be like when you leave,” I whisper.

He sighs and strokes my hair, and yes, he’s firmly out of his morally gray role now. “You know we can’t stay together.”

“Why? We’re both killers. What does it matter?”

“Because my murder was very public, and the entire state is looking for me.”

“Based on the internet, the entire world is looking for you, actually. But not in the way you think.”

“Okay, but the people who are trying to find me for murder will lead the police right to your door. And because you’re a little bit psychotic, you have a body in the backyard. Me staying around isn’t good for either of us. You wanted me to give you something to remember me by, and I did, just as you asked. You will remember my touch. My kiss. My cock. Unless, of course, you think we should stop this now to avoid any further pain.”

“Call me a glutton for punishment, I guess, because I want to eat up every moment of my future pain. Right here. Right now.”

“Then I’ll keep feeding you until you can’t hold another drop of me.” He leans down and kisses me, but another thought circles my brain.

He can’t stay here, but who’s to say I can’t go with him?

I smile and deepen the kiss. Once we have the money, I’ll tell him my plan. I don’t know how he’ll take it. There’s every chance that the obsession is one-sided and he’s only fucking me as a way to pass the time until he takes off. There’s every chance that he plans to fuck me over once he gets the cash.

For now, I’ll just have to keep trusting him.