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CHAPTER ELEVEN

JAXON

I bury my nose in Charlotte’s dirty underwear, breathing in her scent as I fist my cock, my grip strong enough to be painful, the way I want it sometimes. The way I want it when I need to remind myself that I’m too much of a monster to fuck a living woman.

I lean back in my bed, thrusting up into my hand, smothering myself in the soft, pungent silk of Charlotte’s panties. She’s quiet in her room, but I just keep picturing her at dinner, skin luminous in the soft chandelier light, her hair blazing like a fire, her plush body filling out that yellow dress in a way that revealed everything underneath the fabric.

My cock convulses in my palm, and I groan and squeeze it even harder, hard enough that I’m abusing it more than I’m actually jerking off. It fucking hurts, but it feels good too, that pain bursting behind my eyes like starlight. Charlotte’s scent threatens to drown me—her sweat and her arousal, all those reminders that she’s alive trapped in the silk.

I groan as I release, white ribbons of cum spurting across my fingers and beading across my lower belly. The pleasure lingers, though, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Especially with her underwear still draped across my face.

I wonder what she’s doing now.

I roll over, letting the panties drop onto my pillow, and stare at my door, which I left hanging open like an invitation. Not that Charlotte can accept it; I chained her to the bed again. But I still let myself indulge in the fantasy that she’d escape somehow and go wandering in the halls while I tortured my cock on her behalf.

There’s no sign of her, though. She’s not even making any noise.

I ease myself off the bed and clean up my spilled cum, then pull my jeans back on. I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows pressed into my knees, hair hanging into my face from having worked its way out of my ponytail.

She’s so supple . So warm. There’s a pink tint to her skin that drives me wild, and the lights in the dining room brought it out. All through dinner, throughout our conversation about Edie, I kept admiring it, the blood pumping just below her skin.

I want to see it again. Just a peek.

My breathing’s ragged as I go out into the hall. Some of that’s from coming, but some of it’s from the anticipation of seeing her again. Of not knowing how she’ll react when I step into her room. I know she’s not exactly thrilled to be here, trapped in my house, but what choice do I have? I can’t risk her going to the police and having them come out here and discovering my workshop and my offerings. I’d have to die again. I hate dying.

Worse would be if she led the cops to Sawyer and Edie. Or, gods forbid, Ambrose.

This is the best course of action, really. Keeping her locked up.

I stop outside her door and listen. It’s quiet in there. I knock softly.

No answer.

She’s either asleep or she’s ignoring me. Either way, I’m the one with the key to the lock.

I pull out the chain with the keys and unlock the door, then put it back on, tucking it into my shirt so she can’t see. Then I press the door open.

It’s dark. The lights are all turned off. Of course, I’m a Hunter, and I can see in the dark, more or less, and I do see her, spread out on her back on the bed.

She’s asleep—no wonder I didn’t hear anything. I move closer to her, grateful that my bare feet barely make a whisper on the hardwood floor. I do switch on the little yellow-shaded lamp in the corner, just because I want to see her in the light. Her rosy skin. Her shining hair. The gentle rise and fall of her breasts.

My living girl.

No . I push the thought aside. She’s not mine . I’m just keeping her here until I know what to do with her.

But gods—wouldn’t that be something?

I stop at the foot of her bed and stare down at her. She hasn’t stirred to my presence at all, and I think she must be knocked out from all that wine she drank and the weed smoke I blew into her lungs.

That memory snags on me, and I run my tongue over my lips as if I might be able to taste her. I can’t, though. Which isn’t so surprising, since I didn’t taste her when we sort of kissed.

I could taste her now, though.

The idea flushes through my thoughts, and I curl my fingers up into fists. Although I just came, my cock stiffens a little.

Because I could taste her. She’s knocked out, her legs spread across the top of the bedsheet, her dress hiked up to reveal her thick, tanned thighs. It would probably be my only chance to taste her, honestly. She only let me press my lips to hers because she wanted the weed. This way, I can have my taste without disappointing her with my fumbling.

I’m used to dead girls. To their stillness. And this is close. With the wine and the weed, I don’t think she’ll wake up?—

I wonder if I can make her come, though. If she’ll feel the pleasure of my mouth in her dreams.

I lick my lips again, a dull ache throbbing in the back of my jaw. A cigarette craving, except I’m not craving cigarettes.

Very slowly, very carefully, I ease myself onto the bed. When the mattress sinks beneath my weight, I freeze, eyes on Charlotte, waiting for her to wake up. She doesn’t even move, just continues her slow, steady breathing, her eyes flickering behind her lids.

She’s dreaming. Well, I’m going to make her dream about me.

I lean forward, running my hand up her smooth leg until I reach her dress. Then I push that up, too, my breath caught in my lungs as I reveal more of her thighs. Inch by inch. Centimeter by centimeter. An agonizing strip tease.

Charlotte mumbles something and squirms a little on the bed. I freeze, watching her. But she’s not awake.

“Just stay like that,” I whisper to her, flipping the dress up so I can see the view I had so studiously avoided when I was sliding on her underwear earlier.

It’s fucking gorgeous.

Her panties cling to her pussy, the silken fabric just barely outlining the pattern of her folds. For a moment, all I can do is stare down at it, my heart pounding in my throat. It’s the blood that makes it different from my usual encounters. The heat radiating off her skin.

“Don’t let her wake up,” I whisper to my Guardian. I can sense from it a vague, uneasy caution but no reprimands to stop. The Unnamed is nearby, too, watching from the black shadows in the corners. From it, I only sense approval. “Stay asleep,” I whisper as I hook my fingers in the waistband of her panties for the second time tonight and drag them down over her wide, soft hips.

When I catch my first glimpse of dark pubic hair, I go still for a moment, listening to her heartbeat and her breath. They’re both slow. She’s still asleep.

I drag the panties lower. I feel like I’m unwrapping a present on Solstice morning. My father always wrapped the gifts in butcher paper and made me thank the gods when I got what wanted. Those early offerings were simple, just a prick of my own blood dropped on a candle flame to smoke and sputter.

I’m about to get what I’ve wanted since Charlotte breezed through the door of Bandit’s diner.

“Thank you,” I breathe as I pull her panties low enough to finally see her soft cleft. My tongue darts out.

Just a taste , whispers my Guardian.

Devour her , whispers the Unnamed.

Gods, do I want to devour her. I bow my head low and press a kiss against the dark triangle of her pubic hair, where I’m met with a wash of her scent like from the panties. I have to stifle my groan. Have to adjust my quickly-hardening cock so that it isn’t squeezed up against my thigh.

I kiss her again, moving lower. Her legs shift on either side of my head, but I focus on the sounds of her body as it sleeps. Everything is a quiet, faint susurration.

Emboldened, I slide my tongue out to swipe it between her lips.

And I taste her.

For the first time, I taste her.

She tastes alive . She tastes like skin and blood, like the fiery march of a heartbeat. There’s none of the underlying sweetness of rot I’m used to, only a richness like the wet marsh soil out in the front yard.

I can’t hold myself back any longer. I kiss her cunt the way I wanted to kiss her mouth, plunging my tongue inside her to lap at the wetness there. Her heartbeat quickens, a rhythmic pulse I can practically taste on my tongue as I suck and lap at her pussy. She’s still asleep—still, I think, dreaming—but her body reacts to my attention. The wetness deepens. Her living heat flares.

Cautiously, I push her thighs a little wider apart, moving carefully so I don’t wake her. This gives me more access, and I explore her pussy with my tongue until I find the hard nub of her clit, which is hotter than the rest of her, pulsing with furious blood.

She whimpers.

My whole body goes still. I peer over the gentle mound of her stomach and the pile of her dress’s yellow fabric. Her eyes are closed, and there’s a quietness in her body that tells me she’s still asleep even though her heart is beating faster. But her lips are parted. Her cheeks are flushed.

I kiss her again, striking my tongue against her clit like a match. Now that I’ve tasted her, sweet and musty all at once, I want to know what happens to her body when she comes. I’ve never made a woman come before. The few living ones I’ve been with never let me touch them long enough. And dead women don’t orgasm.

But with Charlotte—with Charlotte, I think I can make it happen before she wakes up.

I focus my mouth on her clit like I’m trying to suck down her heat. But I also slide one finger along her slit, parting her soft, damp folds until I can slip inside her, where her pussy is so wet, so hot, I can hardly believe it.

She whimpers again, then moans. Mutters something that I can’t quite decipher. Her legs widen for me, moving with the slow laziness of someone still asleep, or mostly asleep. Her muscles tremble, too, and I attack her with more fervor, burying my nose in her soaking pubic hair as I keep sucking and licking furiously at her clit. Her heart sounds like a jackhammer. Her breath is a hurricane, and I want to be swept away.

And then something amazing happens. Her entire body goes rigid, all her muscles tightening and contracting. Her heart races and her pussy walls flutter around my finger. She keens and bucks her hips up against my mouth. Once. Twice. Like she’s trying to fuck me.

Did she just come?

I keep kissing her through it, eager to make it happen again. I push her legs further apart—a little too roughly, as it turns out.

Maybe it’s because the orgasm masks it. Maybe it’s because I’m too drunk on her pussy and her arousal.

But I don’t notice that her system has woken up. That she’s woken up.

I don’t notice until I hear a shouted, “What the fuck ?” and feel a cold length of chain wrap around my neck.