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21

SHILOH

D ad’s private investigator—Wren Moore, according to his ID—sinks silently to the bottom of the ocean.

There’s no one at the pier to witness his late-night burial. Not even the pier’s security guards. Kaleb made sure of that. He even knew where to go so no cameras could record us dumping a body into the ocean.

Meaning this wasn’t his first time.

Couldn’t be. He was too familiar with the area.

My heart hurt—just a little. I don’t like it when he keeps secrets from me.

Like the identity of the man who’d been feeding him my pictures and whereabouts. Or who lived in the apartment he’d taken over.

He wouldn’t answer my questions about either of those subjects on the ride over.

And I couldn’t let it go. Once we arrived, I wouldn’t leave the car until he gave me at least one answer .

“Don’t worry, Shi. No one’s been following us. The PI’s phone? Other than reporting to your dad, I placed him back behind the bushes. Where he’s supposed to be. I’ll text your dad tomorrow.”

“What if Wren floats?”

“Don’t care. We’ll be out of here right after Halloween.”

“In three days? What happens then?”

“We kill our parents.”

“Are you serious?”

My last question went unanswered.

Kaleb went back to his silence. Same silence he’d been holding on to while he soaped me, shampooed my hair, and massaged conditioner into the roots. He took extra care applying ointment to my wounds and patching them up, then was even more careful undoing the knots in my hair with his large fingers.

The black hoodie I’m wearing is the one he helped me into. The sweatpants, socks, and sneakers. All of them are his, and they’re huge on me. We had no time to go to my apartment to change.

I’d ask where he got the money for the clothes, except I know he won’t tell me. Not tonight.

In the chill of the night, as we watch the PI’s body sink lower and lower, I accept his silence. His secrets. For a little while, I’m submitting to Kaleb fully.

I inhale the scent of him beside me. The new smell of clothes. The salty fragrance of the ocean. I latch onto his arm, leaning into him.

Most of all, I revel in this moment. The pleasure of having him here. Near me .

Safe from imprisonment.

He might be a murderer. A man who only has eyes for me.

He’s ruthless and quick to act.

He’s also my person.

My obsession.

Mine.

“How could you afford those weights anyway?” Once we’re back in the car, the spell is broken. My questions rise to the surface. I can’t help that I’m curious about him. What if he needs my help? “And that rug seemed new.”

He tilts his head, staring at me through his mask.

An eerie silence envelops us. It would have other people running for their lives. Me? Warmth slithers up my spine. My heart thumps in a soothing cadence. My cheeks heat.

This is everything I’ve been dreaming of for eleven years. His undivided attention. I wanted it back after they took him from me. Then, I wanted more. A different, more grown-up version of him.

Now that I have it, I want all of him .

Too soon, the fuzzy feeling gives way to a tightness in my chest. It’s not fair that he won’t let me in. It isn’t right that he carries the weight of saving us by himself.

“You know, um.” My forced smile must look as fake as it feels. “Those things we used to drown a corpse?”

His eyes are hidden, yet his gaze is just as powerful. Just as probing as if I were staring into those golden pools without a barrier between us .

“Could you at least tell me who’s paying for this?” I hug my middle, forcing down the nagging concerns. He promised he wouldn’t get caught and I have to trust him.

He doesn’t have to do this alone, though. Surely, he knows that.

So I try harder for him. I smile, hoping he’ll see my love shining through it.

Kaleb’s head remains at that creepy angle when he presses two fingers under my chin and tips my head up.

Don’t you trust me?

That’s what this gesture is about. That, and he’s tired of talking. He’s doing his best to be communicative for me, but he’s not in the mood. I can tell. He needs me to understand.

“When you’re able to talk, please come to me.” I wrap a hand around his wrist, stroking the inside of it. His pulse. I’m addicted to the feel of it. “Let’s go home.”

He grows a little softer, caressing my jaw with his thumb. Kaleb tells me in his own way that I’m his good girl. That he’ll always come to me.

We drive in silence through quiet streets, through light traffic.

“I’ll be there. For you.” I place my palm facing up over the console and he laces his fingers into mine. We wore gloves to handle the body. We don’t anymore. It’s us, skin to skin.

“I won’t let go, Kaleb.” No matter what he tells me. No matter what he has planned for us, like killing our parents.

My bones nearly crack from how hard he squeezes my hand. I hold steady. I take it .

He returns to the parking spot we left less than an hour ago, a few feet from his apartment.

Well, not his.

Whose is it?

The recurring question dies out when he wrenches the passenger door open.

The crisp fall air hits me first, then it’s him, throwing me over his shoulder. His arm around my legs—careful, without hurting my wounded skin—is so comforting I could die like this. Just like that.

I try to mirror the sentiment by rubbing his giant back. His muscles ripple under my touch as we walk to the apartment. His body speaks to me, though his mouth won’t.

As he sets me down in the shower and whips my clothes off, I get lost in his touch. In him.

He said it and I felt it before—we belong together. We do. It’s as simple as that.

For the second time tonight, Kaleb lathers shampoo into my hair and massages soap into my skin. Leaving no trace that we ever drove a body to the pier and dumped it into the ocean.

He cares for me, even though he’s so deep inside himself that his eyes are as bleak and emotionless as ever.

I don’t ask, letting him wash me thoroughly as if he hadn’t done it right before we left. Meticulously. Methodically.

He does it to show me he’s changed. That he takes care of what’s his while erasing the evidence of a crime.

My body wakes from his rough attention, impersonal as it is.

My nipples peak as he cleans them .

It’s then that he rolls them between his fingers. It’s then that I lean into him. My skin breaks out in goosebumps. My pussy is soaked, thighs squeezing his hand as he soaps me there.

His gaze darkens, and he takes me here, up against the wall.

He’s brutal and ruthless. Holds on to his orgasm until my nails scrape his shoulders, breaking theskin. Until his blood runs down the drain, and my orgasm milks his cock.

Then he fills me with his cum.

With babies that I would love to have once we’re in the clear.

A problem for tomorrow.

There’ll be time for babies.

Later in life.

Kaleb is still a fugitive. I still have to be interviewed about Professor Dempsey’s murder. And Kaleb said we’ll stay here until Halloween.

Meaning I’ll have to stick to the plan. I have to show up at school today, to grieve while pretending that I still want to pursue my career as a psychologist.

I don’t.

This was always about understanding my fixation with Kaleb and who he is. I thought we’d never have the opportunity to be together. That my maddening, unconventional obsession was a sickness.

It isn’t. I realize it now.

We’re fine .

He patches me up a second time, tucks me under the covers, flipping me to face him. The bed is warm. His body is hotter.

My eyelids are incredibly heavy. They weigh a ton or so it feels.

“Tell me.” His voice is hoarse. That’s what happens when you don’t speak for hours at a time.

“Tell you what?”

His hand on myjaw wakes me up. I’m being jolted to life by the simple gesture of tipping my head up to him. Of having his lips brush my temple. My nose. My cheek and lips.

“The first night I walked into your apartment, you were hiding in the closet.” He’s never told me that part before. I frown, and he rubs the creases between my eyebrows. “Don’t act so surprised.”

“The finger you left me.”

He nods. “You kept my mask.”

My body is about to burst into flames as I remember what I did that night.

He blinks, a hint of a rare smile teasing his lips. “You used it.”

“You were going to tell me something,” I snap.

Another rare thing happens. He huffs out a laugh. “Okay, yeah, perv.”

“Kaleb!”

“Kidding.” In the darkness of the room, his golden eyes are like two embers. “It turned me on.”

“Oh God.”

“About the thing I was going to say. ”

“Tell me.” I wrap my fingers around his wrist, kissing his knuckles. Using it to drag myself closer to him. He hums, snuggling into me.

“You—it touched me. Here.” He splays a hand on his naked chest. “I’m different. I don’t care about people. This isn’t how I’m wired. I haven’t felt compassion for anyone until I met you.”

Another kind of warmth sinks into my bones. I’ll never tire of hearing him say these things to me. Just me.

I’ll never tire of listening to him. He’s opening up to me and I embrace it fully.

“Was it always like this for you?”

“You mean before my dad beat me up?” His tone is flat.

My throat locks.

It’s devastating, his story. Every time he brings it up, a small part of me dies. It’s the worst kind of pain. Worse than Dad’s insults and beatings. Worse than having these boys touching me.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to share it with you.” He’s closer to me somehow, his body and his soul. “My dad would raise his voice. His fists. Mom let him. She never left, and I understand why. I get why she stayed. Why she stood by when he punched and kicked me. He was huge and violent. He hit both of us. What came after that was what put her on my shitlist. She wouldn’t come into my room. Wouldn’t ask how I was. No patching me up, nothing. She let me bleed and told my teacher I was a clumsy kid.”

“Oh, Kaleb.” I’m crying. Can’t help it .

“Don’t cry over it. Over me. I don’t.” His flat tone tells me he isn’t faking it. I hurt regardless. “I’m just fucking here, telling you what you wanted to know. If I was born that way. I was. I didn’t care that she didn’t give a fuck about me. Didn’t need her to. That’s what I’m trying to say. I never gave a shit if she was on my side or his.”

It doesn’t matter that none of what happened affected him. I hurt for him anyway. He’d been living with these monsters for over fourteen years. Fourteen years of abuse. It never should’ve happened to him.

Ever.

“Kaleb.” The lump in my throat is big. Huge. Suffocating.

I need him. So I reach for his cheek, stroking my fingertips over his stubble. His high cheekbones. He’s hard beneath my fingers. Cold.

Mine.

“What?” His harsh glare pierces me.

“I’m so sorry.” I scoot closer to him, sliding one leg between his and slipping my palm down to his naked chest. “I’m so terribly sorry they did that to you.”

“Don’t.” His eyes narrow. Fingers bury into my cheek. “This isn’t a poor-me story. I won’t have your pity. I’m talking to you. We’re having a conversation.”

“You can’t tell me how to feel.”

“I can and I will.” The malice bleeding from him makes me shiver. Makes me fall for him that much harder. “I’ll belt your wounded ass for days if you stare at me like that again. I’ll use my teeth and knife to scar every inch of your skin. Especially that part. ”

When his fingers skim over the scar Dad gave me, a hum escapes me.

“I’ll cut you up.” He looks dangerous in the moonlight filtering through the window.

Kaleb’s mask could instill fear in a person’s heart, sure.

The sharp angles of his face and how well he blends into the night are far more terrifying than anything I’ve ever seen.

“I won’t stop there.” The swipe of his thumb along my wet cheek is a warning. “I’ll jerk off and come inside the gash. It’ll burn and you’ll cry and I won’t care. I’ll hold you down and do it for hours.”

I blink. Nothing else to do in the face of his crude words. The depraved images. My bones shake.

“Your tears and pain will always be abetter reaction than your pity.”

My eyes probably reflect my fear and arousal. He studies me for a beat longer, then nods.

“Just so you know, I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for her.” Kaleb’s blasé as he continues his story. Direct. Honest. As if he hadn’t planted horrifying and tempting images in my head. “Maybe I would’ve tried to help her if she had shown me that she cared. When she asked your dad to let me stay, it was too late for us. I don’t want and never will help her. Or anyone. Anyone other than you. You were the only person who ever made me feel.”

It doesn’t go unnoticed that he’s skipped a huge chunk of his life. Between the beatings and our parents getting married after two months of dating.

Eventually, he will .

For the time being, this is enough. This is more than enough.

“You became my entire world, Shi.” He scowls, as if that upsets him.

Like he can’t stand the distance, he tightens his grip around me.

I can’t take not feeling his heartbeat either.

“Why me?” I trace my hand up and down his chest, calming myself by pressing my chest to his. Tilting my head up to take in his handsome face. “What’s so special about me?”

The corner of his mouth ticks to the side. He can tell I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m genuinely curious about him. About the magic that drew him to me.

Worry niggles at me too. If it just happened, it could just as easily disappear.

“We were meant to be.” His fingers tuck my hair behind my ear. “That’s why I broke into your home that first night. I couldn’t and won’t stay away. I’ll burn the world for you, little sister. You’re mine. Forever.”

I’m choked up. I’m floating. My emotions swell, lifting me higher. “That’s that?”

“That’s that.” His smirk is gone. “I wasn’t attracted to you for years, though. While you were a kid. That’s the only thing that changed. The way I saw you.”

“I know. It was the same for me. I was around fifteen or sixteen when I started thinking about you in a different way. But not because you did anything to bring that up. You were the one who protected me against everyone else out there.” I remember what it was like to have predators look at me. Touch me. Debase me. During the months that Kaleb lived with us, it was never like that. “Who got you my photos?”

“Where are your manners, rich girl?” His tone is teasing. His pull on my hair isless so. The roots burn, my eyes tear up. He pulls me and leans into me, and my heart skips a beat when our foreheads press. I’m in love with this moment as much as I’m in love with him. “I started asking you a question. You’re going to be a good girl and let me finish.”

“O-okay.” I have no idea what question, but I nod anyway. “You climbed into my bedroom and?”

He stares at me. Building tension. And I let him.

“Other than humping my mask?—”

“Kaleb!”

“Hey, no use denying it. I told you it was hot. Might ask you for a repeat one day.”

This is the most humiliated I’ve ever felt. There’s a burning in my neck. My cheeks. My ears.

“In case I wasn’t clear, let me repeat myself. It was. Fucking. Hot.” He kisses my nose. It does nothing to cool my skin. Then again, I don’t want to hide anymore, so I guess there’s that. “Why were you in the closet? You do that often?”

“It’s an old habit. I picked up on it after they’d taken you from me. When Dad would scare me.” Sugarcoating equals lying, and I refuse to lie to him. “When he fed me those lies about you. When he’d beat me up. When he wouldn’t let me write to you those first couple of years. I’d hide. I shouldn’t have. He wanted to break me. He wanted”—I won’t cry anymore, won’t shed a goddamn tear over that monster—“me to believe that I was alone in the world. He did everything to ensure that I’d never go to the press or anyone in an attempt to get you out. That’s why I hid. I won’t anymore. Nothing scares me other than you getting caught. Nothing.”

His curious stare is all I get. He should be shouting at me. Turning his back on me for not fighting Dad harder. Blaming me for hiding, for being weak and awful to him.

He should call me out on my shitty behavior. He could accuse me of being weak, for not trying hard enough.

All I get is crickets.

“I’m sorry.” My heart weighs a million pounds. “When the news broke, the guard and driver you killed, his words came back to haunt me. That you murdered people who didn’t deserve it. I thought I’d be next.”

A low, ominous growl reverberates in his chest. “That bastard.”

“Remember when I asked you to kill me?” I hurry up before I lose my nerve. It takes a lot to admit that I betrayed him. How I didn’t believe that he had a good reason to kill his guard. The driver.

He had the best reason. He was making good on his promise.

He was coming for me.

Kaleb nods, tugging on my hair. Raising my lips to be so close to his.

“I thought you would. You deserved it, to kill me as revenge. It was my fault you were in that damned hospital in the first place.”

“I swear to God…” The air between us is charged. Soaked in repressed violence. “There wasn’t a single moment that I re sented you for anything. It hurt when I didn’t get any letters from you. But I could tell you missed me. I knew your dad was a controlling fucker. And you were alone, which fucking gutted me just the same. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. How I wouldn’t be there for you. Then I heard you were sent away from him. That was when I could finally sleep at night. Every second I spent in that place was worth it because you were worth it. Still are and always will be.”

“Who told you I moved away?” I trail my fingertip up to his throat, tracing the veins. The blood thrums beneath them. “The person who got you my pictures? The one you mentioned in therapy?”

“Yes.” His hand slips lower, a manacle around the back of my neck. A possessive grip. “Jerome. Short guy. Black hair. Green eyes. He had outside contacts. He saw me for what I was when I told him one day I’d break out. That in exchange for information, I’d kill one person for him.”

“Jesus, Kaleb. You are not going to—” The controlling prick he is, he catches me mid-tantrum, shutting me up by kissing me. I hate that I have to break away from our kiss. “That’s another risk you’re taking. I won’t allow it. That’s it. We’re leaving tomorrow morning. We’ll disappear. No more games, none of that. We’re going.”

“Calm the fuck down.” He tilts my head to the side, biting my earlobe. I squirm and he sinks his teeth deeper. When I whimper, he whispers, “Remember this. We’re sticking to the plan. I won’t get caught tomorrow. ”

Tomorrow. When Jerome cashes in on the favor, the one Kaleb said his friend had texted him about during one of my classes. Damn both of them.

“God, I hate you.”

“Liar.” He chuckles, low and dark. “Say you understand. Say we’re going to play for as long as I see fit.”

“I understand.” His gaze is on me again, harsh and demanding. I narrow mine. “If they catch you, I’ll kill you before they put the handcuffs on you. I will. I swear I will. Then I’ll kill myself.”

“Yourself?” That last sentence shakes him. It’s visible, this storm that takes over his expression. “Not fucking happening.”

My lips pinch. Hope flares that he’s had a change of heart. “Watch me.”

“Shiloh.” His hand is on my throat in a second. “Are you asking to be shoved inside my trunk for hours? Days? Hmm? Is that it? I’ll give you bathroom breaks and treat you like my cum hole. You won’t know what time it is. What day it is. Where we’re headed. Your sole purpose in life would be to eat, breathe, and get fucked. Your mouth, ass, cunt. I’ll destroy every hole in your body. That’s what’s going to happen if you ever threaten to hurt yourself ever again.”

I can’t be soaking for this. I’m not.

“Fine, I won’t.” We’re at a standoff, both of us breathing fire. “But you owe me.”

“Owe you what?”

“Information.” His eyes soften at that. “Whose house is this? ”

He eases his grip by a fraction and tells me everything. About the couple he killed. Where their bodies lie.

While I’m worried about getting caught, I’m equally appeased. I finally have my answers. I have his honesty.

I’m not in the dark anymore.

I think.

I hope.

Soon, he won’t be in the dark about anything anymore, either.