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6

SHILOH

T he alarm on my phone is obnoxiously loud. I’m a heavy sleeper, which is why I set it up that way.

This morning it isn’t as ear-piercing. Strange.

I wake up to the sound of it, anyway, as dull as it is. Blink my eyes open, staring into the darkness of my closet. At the small square of light between the sliding door and the wall.

Sun seeps through the crack. The day has arrived, stripping the remnants of sleep from me.

Shame creeps up my neck once I’ve fully woken up. I remember everything from last night. Every small, debauched detail of it.

But I don’t remember my lips being sticky. My cheeks are, too. I keep gripping Kaleb’s mask with one hand as the other rises to my face.

Weird. It’s like touching dried glue.

Oh. Oh .

This stickiness, it’s me. I made a mess while licking the mask clean, so yeah, it has to be my arousal I feel on my face.

The warmth in my neck turns into a scorching, burning wildfire as realization sinks in. I pinch my eyes shut, willing the humiliation away. I’m never doing that again. Ever.

I blame it on yesterday. My emotions were all over the place. That’s why I let it go that far.

No more.

The alarm blares and blares.

“I’m up.” I place Kaleb’s mask in the shoebox. Bury it in the back of the closet, on the upper shelf.

Where it belongs. Away from someone like me. Someone who isn’t worthy of him.

As much as I wish we could be together. As much as the idea has my blood searing in my veins.

He’d be better off without me. The traitor.

By now, he’s either managed to cross the border into another country. Or he got caught.

Either way, he isn’t coming for me.

Not to fuck me. Not to kill me.

I have nothing to worry about or get excited about. No big stepbrother to long for.

With a heavy heart, I slide the closet door open a tiny crack, my head bowed in shame. But as the light filters in, I see it. Oh, shit. Oh, no.

No, no, no.

This isn’t real.

This isn’t. Fucking. Real.

A finger .

He was here. The only man who would’ve left this for me.

“Kaleb.” My fingertips press to my parted lips.

My eyes slam shut, my brain working hard to erase it from my memory.

“I’m imagining it. He couldn’t have gotten in here. No way. I’m being paranoid, which is reasonable, right? I’m still confused. Still riled up after thinking he was going to kill me last night. My mind needs to make sense of this, so yeah. It conjured a finger. A finger that isn’t there. I’m not next. I won’t die today. Won’t get a chance to fall to my knees and”—I whisper that last part—“beg for his forgiveness. Or die, as much as I’ve earned it. He isn’t here. He isn’t here.”

Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes.

Shit.

The finger is still there, exactly where it was.

Right. There.

A million emotions fight for dominance inside me. Lust, fear, and rage climb one on top of the other. They’re crowding my chest. Cracking my ribs.

Heat rushes through me. I’m cold down to my bones a second later.

What should I do?

Is he here?

Is this a message? What kind of message?

Deep breath.

This is a threat.

My penance for fucking up royally.

He saved me, and I did nothing for him in return .

I square my shoulders, straightening my spine. I won’t run from him if he wants to kill me. Won’t cower from my fate. My punishment.

My death.

I owe him that much.

Since the finger is here, I imagine he’s out there. Waiting for me. A cleaver in his right hand. His left one is ready to tear my heart out of my chest.

A curse escapes me, at how wet the image gets me. How excited.

This is wrong.

I run my fingers through my hair, smoothing it.

That’s how I know I’m sick beyond repair.

This moment is important to me.

The first impression he’ll have of me after years of being apart.

I don’t want to look like the kid he remembers. The one he’d see first thing in the morning as he’d rise from the floor next to my bed. The girl who had bedridden hair. Puffy eyes.

I want to look like a woman.

Even if he slits my throat a second later.

I want…I want…

I might not survive him, but damn it, I want him to think I make a beautiful corpse. I want his living, free heart to skip a beat as he watches the blood soaking the floor beneath me.

Just one heartbeat.

A crazed laugh bubbles up from within me. I slap a hand over my mouth, shutting myself the hell up.

I’m not?—

I won’t?—

I have this.

Whatever comes, I have this.

I’m not scared. I asked for it.

In a rare act of courage, I forced my father’s hand to let me come back here. I asked to be close to Kaleb.

Now that I have what I wanted, I can’t lose my shit.

Dying won’t be the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through.

My fingers curl around the door’s side, and I slide it open. Gray light shines into my eyes. I squint, searching for Kaleb in my room.

No one’s here.

No formidable man taking up the entire space of my bedroom. No cleaver wielded in a big hand. No one hauling me out of the closet, towards my would-be killer.

I’m alone, and yet the strange feeling intensifies. A lasso cinching around my midsection, dragging me forward. The pull is strong. Undeniable.

Where is he?

The phone’s alarm has stopped ringing. It’ll start over in a few minutes. I go over to the bed and turn it off. Sneaking a glance out of my bedroom and then the rest of my empty apartment.

It’s possible that he left. That this is just part of a mind game, a different form of revenge.

He isn’t here to tell me what the finger means. What this silence means.

He has plans for me. Cruel ones. Painful ones .

Later. I’ll take his punishment piece by piece when he makes himself known.

Until then, I have to get ready for the day.

The pit of my stomach is covered in lead as I head back to my closet and pick the finger off the floor. I carry it to the kitchen, storing it in the same ice pack where the other two, smaller ones, rest. The gifts Kaleb gave me forever ago.

In another lifetime.

I sigh, treading back into my bedroom and from there, my bathroom. My nose scrunches, picking up a clean scent.

He showered here.

The lead at the bottom of my stomach weighs me down further. I grab the doorframe, fighting to stay upright. Fighting to catch my breath.

What else did he do while I was out of it?

Did he stand there, listening to me fucking his mask?

My reflection stares back at me from the vanity mirror. My wide eyes. Pale complexion. Slack jaw. I thought I was ready for what he had planned for me.

Laughable. Look at me. Hyperventilating. A mess.

I have to get out of here. Need to get outside, get some fresh air. Rearrange my thoughts.

But first, shower. I can’t show up to school looking like I’m two steps away from a meltdown.

Ten minutes later, I’m wrapped in a towel, crossing the room.

Rushing toward my closet.

“Little sister.” A hand wraps around my ankle .

My eyes cut to the floor. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

Kaleb’s here.

His lean forearm flexes. The rest of his body is hidden under the bed.

My scream is a choked breath that’s lodged in my throat. Air refuses to go in or out.

Lungs burning.

“Come here.” Kaleb isn’t patient as he pulls harder on my ankle. He’s vicious. Throws me off balance.

With a yelp, I drop to my hands and knees, the rug absorbing my fall.

On heavy limbs, I crawl forward. Away from him.

In my periphery, I catch him climbing out and, foolishly, I stop to turn my head and look.

His face is hidden behind the mask. A new one. An identical one to the one they made him leave behind, but a lot less worn out.

This is a nightmare. This is a dream.

I’m going to die.

Frozen in place, I’m paralyzed as he’s staring at me.

I was right. He’s bigger than he was when they locked him up. Shoulders broader. He’s a lot taller than I remembered him, too.

Even through his hoodie, I see that his body has filled out. He’s lean and terrifying. He could do some real damage.

He will.

And I’m stuck in place .

His hand moves to wrap around my wrist, hauling me to sit up on my knees, a position that mirrors his. I stare up at him, too shocked to say a damn thing.

Please. Stop. Let me go. Kill me.

Nothing comes out.

Kaleb’s actions speak for both of us. His thumb strokes my pulse point. His grip is punishing. His touch is a threat.

I can stop your heart from beating whenever I choose .

Though every part of me screams yes , the primal need to survive makes me whisper, “No. No.”

“Hmm.” That sound is more than what most people get from Kaleb. It does nothing to comfort me. He doesn’t love me.

Judgment day is here.

Kaleb gets to his feet, pulling me up with him.

We’re both standing, yes. But we aren’t equals. Oh, no. He’s much taller. Bigger. And his jeans and hoodie smell of my laundry detergent.

Guessing it right—that he spent the night here—doesn’t feel like I won anything. It means he’s been stalking me. A predator who gets off on the chase. Who’s about to eat his prey alive.

He’s waited for me to wake up so he could take his time torturing me.

Murdering me.

I whimper. He cocks his head to the side.

My teeth snap shut.

“Missed me?” he grunts.

An old instinct flares inside me, obliterating my need to live. A protective one. Of him .

Someone could come searching for him here. In my apartment.

“This is a mistake, coming to my home.” As I talk, I clutch the knot on my towel, tugging it close to my body. “You have to hide.”

He isn’t listening to me. Kaleb tips his chin down, his entire focus on my hand. On the flimsy towel that separates us. Ice chills my spine and heat pools at my core.

His eyes strip me.

He’s doing deplorable things to me inside his head.

No doubt about that. I don’t need to actually see his eyes or be a mind reader to know it.

A low growl reverberates from his chest.

A weak cry comes from mine.

Not because I hate it.

I don’t hate him being here. Don’t hate him staring at me in a totally different way than how he did eleven years ago.

I do not, cannot, hate how his free hand bunches my towel up my legs. Just a little.

I cry out because I don’t hate it at all.

“Please.” Stop. Go on. Kill me. Just kill me already, please. I need this nightmare that I’ve lived in for the past eleven years to end. Do it. “Please.”

His hand stills on my thigh. “You haven’t answered my question. Don’t you dare please me until you do.”

“I did miss you.” It’s the truth. My chin wobbles as he pushes my towel up another inch. “I did, and I’m so sorry, Kaleb. ”

He stills a second time. His thumb is there, pushing between my clenched thighs. If he goes any higher, he’ll touch me where I’m hot for him. Where I’m shamefully wet for him.

For a murderer.

For my stepbrother.

“What about you? Hmm?” Sassing him isn’t an act of bravery. It’s all panic laced with surprise. So much so that I gasp at the end of the sentence.

He huffs a cold, soulless laugh. “What about me?”

“Yes.” My mouth does the talking for me. Instead of telling him to leave like I should, instead of letting him punish me, I demand answers. I’m going to die soon, anyway. Might as well find out if there’s only hate there or something else. “Did you miss me?”

He’s on me in a flash. Manhandles me to the floor, pressing my back flat against it. Towering over me while my wet hair sprawls on the rug. On my shoulders, hiding my scar. My shame.

He can’t see it. Can’t pity me.

Though his pity isn’t my biggest concern. The fear of the promised pain is stronger than I imagined it would be. I clutch onto my towel for dear life, terrified of what could happen once it’s off.

Desperate for it.

What’s wrong with me?

“No, I didn’t.” He bats my hand away, tugging at the knot on my towel .

It opens, revealing my skin to him. This is bad. This is wrong, how he won’t let me close the towel. How he pushes my legs apart.

“Didn’t miss you one fucking bit, Shiloh.”

“Stop.” Tears well in my eyes. He isn’t letting go. His cock is hard against my thigh. I know what comes next.

This can’t be my first time. With a man who loathes me. Who wants to kill me.

No matter how much I idolize him. Want him. Wet for him. I’m indebted to him, but now that he’s here, now that the threat is real, I can’t.

I’d rather die a virgin.

I’d rather he end it quickly.

If he had missed me, it would have been a different story. He hadn’t, that much is obvious.

“Why should I?” Kaleb runs two fingers along my pussy, drawing wetness up to my clit.

“Stop.” But I arch my back to him. Lift my ass in the air, offering myself to him.

“Answer me.” His voice is firm, his fingers sliding up and down my pussy.

Through the fear and desire, I notice that his touch is tentative. Rubbing me slowly. He shoves his fingers between my lips and circles my clit, picking up the pace when my breath catches.

He’s looking for my pleasure points.

I gulp.

He’s going to force it on me.

The man who so clearly despises me .

He’s going to use my pleasure to humiliate me.

“Stop, stop.” I was ready to die. To be punished for what I’d done to him. For never speaking up. I can’t deserve this . To be mortified and hot and panting for him. “Stop, please. I don’t want it if you hate me. Kill me. Chop off my finger. Just stop it.”

My hand on his wrist is useless. He yanks it away effortlessly. Glares at me through those black, dark eyes of his mask.

“You’re soaked, Shi.” He lifts his hand, and the evidence is there. My endless pleas for him to stop prove to be a lie. “Give me one good reason why I should believe you.”

“This can’t be my first time.” A tremble courses through me. My answer has to be wrong. A punishment follows it when two of his thick fingers are shoved inside me. Stretching me. Curling inside me and—“Oh God. ” I clench my teeth against the onslaught of desire. “I’d rather die.”

He’s watching me. His gaze roams over my body and face while I moan and writhe and cling to the rug. It’s wrong and fucked up, and I truly shouldn’t want this. Even if my body is singing a different tune.

Even if my pussy feels full and empty at the same time.

“Liar.” He curls his fingers again, rubbing my walls. My reactions—he’s repeating it because he’s seen me react to this.

My stepbrother is an observer. He’s learned, in a few minutes, how to manipulate me through his touch. He hasn’t had any experience with it, I realize, as he starts circling my clit with his thumb again. Doing what coaxed moans out of me.

He’s studying me .

But this is his first time, too.

“You’re my stepbrother.” I clench my thighs. Fuck, it feels so good. Fuck, his fingers are deeper, his thumb goes faster, and fuck, fuck, fuck . “I owe you my life. For ruining yours.”

“Poor, rich girl.” He raises the bottom of his mask. There it is, the hint of his perfect lips. His sculpted chin. “You think I need anything from you?”

“I—I—” Yes. No. Maybe. “Please. Please. Stop this. Stop, Kaleb, I’m begging you. It can’t feel good. I can’t want it when you hate me. But yes, I owe?—”

Can’t finish a sentence. Can’t catch my breath. The pads of his fingers are demanding an orgasm from me. It’s building in my stomach. I’m trying to cling to my sanity. To the part of me that knows how wrong this is.

We can’t be together. Never. Too much has happened.

And on top of that, he’s my stepbrother.

“Your life? No, thanks. Don’t need it.” He sits up, spitting on my pussy. His thumb flicks on my clit, and I wish I could scream. Wish I wouldn’t care about him being caught. I do. I do. “Your cunt, though?”

When he presses his fingers harder, dragging them in and out of me, I nearly black out. He’s pleasuring me and I won’t give in to him. Won’t let him have my orgasm.

Just tell me you don’t hate me.

“Your cunt wants it.”

“No.” My vision blurs around the edges. That need, I’ve never felt anything close to this. This tidal wave that consumes everything in its wake. “Please, let me go, Kaleb. Kill me instead. Kill. Me. ”

“Let’s get one thing straight.” The third finger he adds is the death of me. I’m stretched and full. He pushes deeper, and there’s pressure there. Like he’s going to break through a barrier. “I didn’t murder those two losers because I had nothing better to do that day. Everything I’ve ever done, I did it for you. Only you. So no. I’m not here to kill you. But I have been feeling a little neglected. And this virgin pussy is so fucking pretty. I want it. I want all of you, but I’m taking this part first. So you’re going to start by apologizing to me. By being a good whore and opening your legs for your stepbrother.”

My lungs are about to explode. I’m holding on to my orgasm and it hurts. It hurts worse when he says things that make my toes curl. Looking into his mask makes me hotter. It’s depraved and fucked-up and I’m so turned on.

It’s agony.

“Look at you,” he groans. “Tight and clenching around me. When I decide?—”

I whimper in pain, cutting him off mid-sentence. It’s impossible to hold on to a nuclear bomb. It’s torture. It’ll be humiliating when I let go.

“When I decide to take your cunt.” He won’t listen. Won’t stop. Just like he didn’t when I reminded him we were stepsiblings. When I said I didn’t want this. “You’ll feel so good around my cock. Squeeze out of every drop of my cum.”

The worst and best thing happens then, at his filthy words. With his fingers invading me. His thumb that flicks and rubs and demands my orgasm.

I come, shuddering around his fingers. The bones in my body melt for him. My skin is set on fire. The intense, unrelenting pleasure pushes moans out of me. Feral ones, ones that an animal would make.

That’s how good it feels. How decadent and wrong and terribly consuming.

“Kaleb, stop. I can’t take it anymore.”

When I think it can’t hurt any worse, that it can’t get any better, it does. Another spit on my pussy and I almost tear my rug beneath my fingers. It’s wrong that his mask makes me want things. It’s wrong that it’s his hate that drives him to do these things to me.

“Go on.” There’s an edge to his voice. It’s rugged. Raw. “Tell me how much you hate this. Tell me how you can’t stand it. I dare you to. While your pussy sucks my fingers in.”

“Please, I don’t want it when you’re like this.” My denial is quieter. Pathetic. He might kill me once he milks me for all I’m worth. “We shouldn’t be doing this. I told you. I can pay you back with my life.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. No time to analyze what it means. No time to escape when Kaleb moves on top of me.

He’s a force, taking both my wrists and locking them together with one hand. He’s merciless as he shoves them up and over my head.

“You don’t want this, huh?”

“We can’t. Not when you hate me.” Such a futile denial. A miserable one, since I don’t put up a single ounce of a fight. “Wrong. So wrong.”

“Is that so?” His hard cock is pinned to where I’m wet and sensitive. I can feel how big he is through his jeans. His free hand closes on my breast. A punishing grip. A sensual one. “Then why are you ruining my jeans? Why”—he rolls his hips, a jerky movement that sends another aftershock rippling through me—“you keep coming on my cock?”

“You don’t want this. You hate me.” I pause. “Don’t you?”

One shake of his head while he dry-humps me. He’s brutal and his jeans graze my pussy in a painful way. A commanding way.

“I thought I was clear before.” He grunts, rolling my nipple between his fingers. When I moan for him, he groans again and thrusts harder into me. “This is what I want. I want to hurt you. Want to take from you. Your pussy. Your moans. Your orgasms. Your cries of pain. This is who I am. I’ve waited for you for years. Watched you grow up from the sidelines. Jerked off to your pictures.”

“Kaleb.” It’s a half-cry, half-question.

“Yes, of course I fucking I lied. Of course I missed you. And I’ll do whatever the fuck I please with you. You won’t have a say about it. You’re going to stay alive for every second of it.”

This is too much. Knowing he sent people to stalk me. That he’s been planning this. I can’t process anything anymore while he invades me like this. While he won’t listen to me when I tell him to stop.

I’m done. I give up, letting myself just feel . I let myself want him without thinking about right and wrong or the consequences of his revenge.

His hate is as addictive as the other side of him. The one from our past .

“You’ve been mine from the second I saw you.” His thrusts are faster, pinning me to the floor. I can’t stop opening my legs for him, can’t stop the second orgasm from building inside me. As scared as I am. Because he moans, and holy fuck, it’s beautiful. He moans like a man. Like a beast. “Mine to protect. Mine to love . Now…”

His cock thickens in his jeans, and it’s then that he tears off his mask.

You can bury a lot of painful shit in the back of your head.

The sting of a slap. The burning of a belt. The humiliation of being assaulted. The helplessness of being ripped from your home.

But these eyes. This vacant yet dark look. The gold swirling inside them.

I could never ever forget that.

He’s been the star of too many dreams. So many nightmares.

“Kaleb.” I push my arms up, my hands longing to touch him.

He shoves them down, lips twisting into a snarl. “Now you’re mine to ruin.”

This orgasm is unlike any other. The world is a sphere of white light, heat, and passion. Hate for missing out on him. Fear of what he’ll do next.

I’m all of it and none of it at once. Tears streak my cheeks. My temples.

“Fuck. Yes, Shiloh. Fuck, I’m coming.” His cock jerks in his jeans and his lips are on mine. Bruising me. Pushing mine open so his teeth have access to my bottom lip, wounding the flesh. Drawing blood. “Keep crying for me, baby. Let me see this. How beautiful you are when I destroy you.”

“Why?” I ask between one savage kiss and the other. He comes and curses, and I feel warmth and wetness through his jeans. “Why would you want this?”

“Why.” He’s looming over me, his breaths slowing. “I’m chaos and destruction. I’m wrath and your own personal hell. And—I’ll repeat it until you realize I mean it—this is what I want. You. You could tell the cops. You could have them lock me up again. Doesn’t matter. I’ll keep coming back. I’ll keep taking what’s mine, and that’s you. It’s always been you.”

Fear and want and affection suffocate me.

He knows I may never reciprocate his feelings.

He doesn’t care.

About anything.

I do.

Whatever we did here is something two stepsiblings should never do. Something that should never happen between a future psychologist and a serial killer.

Between a woman and the man who hates her. Who punishes her simply because he wants to.

“No, it hasn’t.”

“Yes.” He licks my tears from the corner of my eye and down to my ear, where he stays. “Better get used to me, little sister.”

He gets up, snatches his mask, and strolls toward the front door without a care in the world.

I’m left here alone, my world in ruins, my orgasm running down my thighs.

All alone.

Again.