Page 116 of On Edge

Blown it all to goddam pieces.

Two days away and I come back to her, all flour-dusted innocence that makes my dick hard for reasons I can’t even explain.

She shudders when I suck each finger, tasting the delicious things she’s been creating. And then I kiss her hands, and bitegently the mound of flesh on her palm, and then her wrist. As my teeth graze over the pulse point, her pupils dilate, and then there’s a flash of fear mixed with a hunger I know so well, before her lids close. She’s fighting herself as much as she’s fighting me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear it,What the fuck are you doing?This isn’t the plan.But her pulse hammers under my lips, and I can’t seem to pull away. Even when she says words I don’t care to hear.

“Kathy could come back.”

“Let her,” I murmur, bending over to kiss the delicate part where her shoulder meets her neck. “You’remywife.”

The lie tastes bitter even as I say it. I don’t know why I’m saying that.

“We’re not married yet.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re already mine.” I knead her breasts over her dress, loving that I make her gasp.

And ignore the fact that she’s only going to be mine for a short while. That it’s not real.

Sheismine.

Until she’s not.

This is just casual. Because I can’t seem to stay away. I can’t seem to do anything else but taste my little finch inside and out.

Because she’s mine for now.

That’s why I had to skin Fogg alive. Every part of him that had touched her, hurt her, needed cleansing. I wanted him to feel her pain before I cut his jugular in two. An easy death wasn’t good enough.

No one touches my little finch but me.

I shouldn’t even touch her.

And I really meant to stay away.

But.

The memory of Fogg’s screams wasn’t satisfying me in the end.

The last two days have been a nightmare: chasing down someone who doesn’t want to be found after months of searching. I nearly got toher, but she slipped through my fingers at the local airfield, bribing one of the private aircraft owners, and flew to France. Now, wheresheis is anyone’s guess.

And the entire time, all I wanted to do was to come back here and check on my little songbird, but I couldn’t.

I’ve never felt so frustrated. Nothing seemed to matter anymore except coming here and doing exactly this…

And I fucking love it; the gasps she’s making, the way she succumbs to me even when she’s afraid. I’m becoming obsessed with this woman, and I don’t know how to stop.

I can’t help myself.

I need her to take the edge off.

Like an addict needing a high.

So I can feel something, anything, and without slitting someone’s throat. She’s the only thing in this house that isn’t cold and dead. The only warm, living thing that doesn’t recoil when I touch it.

I hate needing her.

So, to remind myself what this is….