Page 22 of Stream & Scream

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Olivia

Sunday evening.

T he sound of leaves crunching around me pulls me from sleep.

My eyes snap open to a graying landscape that comes just after sunset and makes everything look like it's been drained of color and life.

The hollow between the oak's roots feels smaller than it did when I crawled into it a few hours ago, more confining, like the walls closed in on me while I was unconscious and vulnerable.

But it's not the walls that have moved.

It's him.

I can feel his presence before I see him, an eerie awareness that makes my skin prickle and my breath catch in my throat despite every rational thought screaming that I should be terrified and fighting.

Really, I should be doing anything except lying perfectly still while a serial killer circles my hiding place.

The footsteps are unhurried. There’s no urgency in them. Leaves crunch as they shatter beneath his heavy boots.

He wants me to know he's here. He wants me to wake up to the sound of him lurking.

The footsteps stop directly outside the entrance I crawled through to get here, so close I can hear his even breaths. For a moment, there's nothing but silence and the growing certainty that this is it—the moment when the game ends and reality begins.

He’s going to kill me.

"I know you're awake," he says, his voice no longer masked by a filter. "I heard your breathing change."

I cup my hand over my mouth to calm my breathing, but it’s no use.

"Come out, Olivia," he continues, and there's amusement in his tone now. "Don't make me drag you out. We both know how this ends."

With my death.

I crawl out from the roots slowly, trying to stall long enough to come up with an escape plan. Or any plan at all.

When I stand fully upright, exposed and in the open, he's right there. Close enough to touch, close enough that I can see details of his tactical gear that I hadn’t noticed before.

He smells like a man who’s spent the last two days in the forest. Wild and sweaty, but there’s still a light note of the soap he uses.

Or maybe it was his cologne? Either way he could smell worse, I decide.

He's removed the mask.

The Hunter wants me to see him.

His eyes are dark, but they’re watching me intently behind long lashes. There’s brown stubble along his sharp jawline, completing his two days in the forest look.

He's the perfect predator. Beautiful in a way that draws me in and makes me want to know more about him, yet devastatingly animalistic beneath the surface. He’s corded in lean muscle from head to toe. He’d rip me apart before I knew what hit me.

His smile is predatory and approving as he watches me assess him. Suddenly his hand is clamped over my mouth and his body is pressing against my back with enough force to make it impossible to fight. I can’t even move.

He spins me around in one swift movement, positioning me exactly where he wants me, immediately lighting my entire body on fire with need.

My hands hit the rough bark of the oak tree, palms spread against moss-covered wood, back arched in a position that leaves me completely exposed and vulnerable to him.

He’s going to fuck me, and then he’s going to kill me.

"It felt like a good time to pay you another visit," he says, his mouth close enough to my ear that I can feel his hot breath against my skin. "You look like you could use another fucking, and I’ve got some anger I need to work out."

"P-please," I whisper, though I'm not sure what I'm asking for. Mercy? Release? For him to stop talking and start fucking me?

"Please what?" His hands grip my hips, holding me in place against the tree with enough pressure to leave new fingerprint bruises on my skin. "Use your words, clickbait. Tell me what you want."

"I want—" The words stick in my throat, caught between what society tells me is right and what society tells me is wrong.

"You want me to fuck you," he says before I can fully gather my thoughts. "You want me to bend you over this tree and deliver a show to millions of viewers at home. You want my cock buried between your thighs while my thumb moves in tight circles over your clit."

Yes. God, yes. That's exactly what I want, what I've been wanting since he let me go, what I can't stop fantasizing about in my dreams.

But before I can form the words, his hands are already moving, claiming me and taking possession of my body.

He strips the tracksuit from my body, tearing the cheap fabric when it doesn't cooperate quickly enough with his movements. The cool air hits my bare breasts, making my nipples ache as they harden.

Once my clothes are off and his cock is free from his pants, he pushes me forward, bending me at the waist while I brace my hands against the rough bark of the tree. I leave my back arched and exposed, like he’s a dark god and I’m offering myself to him.

The tree trunk is solid beneath my palms, old wood that has survived at least a hundred years of storms and droughts. It feels appropriate somehow, being fucked like this against something so grounded and stable.

"Look at you," he murmurs, his hands following the curve of my spine until he finds my ass, cupping and squeezing it in both hands before spanking me. "You’re so fucking perfect. You were made for me."

Maybe I was. Maybe everything that happened in my life before Friday night was just preparation for this moment. It’s possible every decision I’ve ever made has led me here, to where my fate lands in his hands.

"Mine," he says as he lines his cock up behind me, and the possessiveness of the word sends chills through me. "You've been mine since the moment I saw you step off that truck. I won’t let them take you from me."

I feel him against me, thick and hard and decorated with metal. The piercings are cold against my sensitive skin as he positions himself.

"Tell me how fucking badly you want this.” He presses the head of his cock into me but pauses there. "Tell me how much you want me to take my pleasure from you."

Fuck .

I let my eyes close for a second, inhaling and exhaling slowly before opening them again. I’m so fucked for this.

"I want you," I whisper. "I want you to fuck me and use me however you want."

The last few words are barely audible, but he hears it, responding with a growl that comes from somewhere deep in his chest, somewhere primitive and possessive and absolutely fucking devastating.

Then he's inside me.

Not gentle or careful, just raw and hungry thrusts.

The stretch is overwhelming, but my body accepts him almost immediately, relaxing to fit him.

"Fuck," he hisses against my shoulder when he’s fully inside me. "You’re so fucking tight, Liv."

He sets a brutal rhythm, each movement hard and unforgiving, but I fucking love it. I arch deeper, opening myself up for him and letting my pussy swallow as much of him as it can take.

His teeth find the curve of my shoulder, not quite breaking skin but applying enough pressure to bruise and mark me as his, leaving evidence of his ownership that will last for days. The bite ignites my nerves, lighting up my entire body.

"They can’t take you," he grunts from behind me, driving himself deeper. "You’re mine , not theirs."

His words send me over the edge, making stars form in the edges of my vision as I lose control.

I scream into the forest as my orgasm tears through me, and the sound echoes through the forest, raw and primal and absolutely shameless.

Which, as it turns out, is a mistake.

"What the fuck?”

The voice cuts through my post-orgasmic haze like a blade, masculine and confused and obviously belonging to someone who stumbled into something they were never meant to see. I freeze, every muscle in my body going rigid with mortification and panic.

Trent Mason stands at the edge of the clearing, mouth wide open like his brain is struggling to process what his eyes are showing him.

For a moment, nobody moves. Nobody speaks.

We're all frozen in a tableau that would be comical if it weren't so fucking mortifying—me bent over a tree with The Hunter still buried inside me, Trent gaping like a fish that's been yanked out of water, the whole scene preserved by countless cameras for the whole world to watch.

Trent begins again, “What the fu?—”

There’s a flash of silver behind me, and before I process what he’s done, there’s a loud thunk .

Trent falls to his knees, blade sticking out from the middle of his forehead.

Blood pours from his head and his eyes go wide.

He doesn’t even have time to reach for the blade before he’s dead.

His entire body goes limp, crashing to the forest floor, where he twitches for a moment, then goes permanently still.

The whole sequence takes maybe three seconds.

Three seconds from witness to corpse.

I scream in horror, pulling away from The Hunter as quickly as I can. My brain is overloading. It’s impossible to process all of these things happening simultaneously in the same small space. It’s psychological whiplash.

I’m gonna vomit.

The Hunter steps back, still stroking his dick while he watches me, observing my reaction.

But I can't process anything except the need to run, to move , to put distance between myself and this fucking monster who makes me lose the battle with my morality.

I gather what’s left of my torn tracksuit and my backpack, and then I run, naked and sticky with arousal and absolutely shameless, sprinting through thick trees that tear at my skin.

Behind me, his voice carries through the air with confidence.

"You can run, clickbait," he calls out to me, and there's amusement in his tone. "But I'll always catch you. You belong to me now."

I already know it’s inevitable.

And maybe—just maybe —because some part of me wants to be caught.

To be claimed again and again, to experience his power and the vulnerability of my surrender.

But even as I run, I can't ignore the heat that's still pulsing between my thighs.

And I can't ignore the growing certainty that I'm not running from him at all.

In a roundabout way, I'm running to him.

And tomorrow, or tonight, or whenever he decides the chase has gone on long enough, I'll let him catch me again.

Because that's what toys do.

They get played with.