I grin in an attempt to shoo the situation away. “Why do you do all of this?”
“All of this?”
“Being part of the Heathens, hunting down people. All of this.”
“Why are you asking?”
Despite my attempts for it not to, my body relaxes. “You keep pursuing me, but I know nothing about you aside from your being in the Heathens and a med student.”
A gleam of light flashes in his eyes. “Have you been asking about me, baby?”
“Didn’t have to. Annika doesn’t stop talking once she has a topic of discussion.”
“But you listened.” His gloating tone pisses me off.
“So?”
“I thought you weren’t interested.”
I’m obviously drawn to him in ways I can’t understand, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I admit that.
“Or maybe you’re just not interested in admitting it out loud.” His stance turns nonchalant as he seems to enjoy himself.
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Concerning?”
“Aren’t med students supposed to protect their hands? Yet you fight and hunt and do all types of fuckeries that could get you hurt.”
He lifts his hands and studies them under the gloomy light as if it’s the first time he’s seen them. “The world is painted in different colors, depending on the angle you see it from. Every single ideal can be turned monstrous when it’s pushed to the limits. I’m the limits. I’m the edges humans are warned to stay away from but are attracted to anyway, because it’s just so different from what they know. And because I’m permanently on the edge, I need constant stimuli to remain functioning. Fighting, hunting, and being a doctor-in-the-making are those stimuli.”
So that’s his obsession. His way of driving away the emptiness is through unconventional methods. I understand why he has to do this, though I don’t agree with it.
His view of the world is fascinating, and if I didn’t want to escape him, I could listen to him talk about it all day.
“Why medicine, then? Its codes imply that you should save people.”
“And I do, after I see inside them.” His lips curve in a cruel smirk. “Look at your face becoming all horrified. Do I scare you, baby?”
“No.” I lift my chin. “I’m a King. We aren’t born to be scared of people.”
“Hmm. I like the whole family slogan thing. Are you close with them? Your family, I mean?”
“So what if I am?”
“Do they know you were thinking about throwing yourself off that cliff?”
I startle, my whole body going rigid. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That night, you had this dead look in your eyes, like someone who was tired—not bored, just fucking exhausted.” He steps toward me and I retreat, matching his steps. “Did you think about how it’d feel at the bottom of that ocean with your head cracked against the rocks? How you’d be asphyxiated by the water for minutes on end? Death by drowning is the most difficult. You open your mouth, bubbles will float, but water is the only thing you’ll get into your lungs. You think you want to die, but the more you breathe in water and choke on it, the more you’ll regret it. So tell me, Glyndon, did you imagine that everything would be over if you just…let go?”
He’s…really a psycho, isn’t he?
There’s no way a normal person would talk so casually about such a topic, and with great detail, no less.
I slap both hands against his chest. “Stop it.”
“You’re trembling, baby. Did I hit a nerve?”
I glare up at him. “You have no right to judge me.”
“I’m not. I’m trying to get to know you better, like you did to me earlier.”
This bastard is escalating again. He didn’t like that I was asking questions, so he decided to go for the jugular to teach me a lesson.
Too bad for him, I’m not backing down.
“Couldn’t you just ask what my favorite color, band, and film are?”
“You don’t have a favorite color, since you wear all of them. Your favorite band is Nirvana since you have their songs in all your Instagram stories. Your favorite movie is Inception, per a painting you posted a year ago on your IG that was captioned, ‘Inspiration by my favorite film ever, Inception.’ You also love chocolate and cherry flavor ice cream—together—your paternal grandfather, and the shorts and tank top style. You have an inferiority complex due to your mother’s and brothers’ talent, which makes you look more and more uncomfortable in family pictures as time goes by. It probably started early on and accumulated over the years until it drove you to that cliff.”
My nails dig into his chest, wanting—no, needing—to inflict pain. “How…how the hell do you know all of that?”
“I’m good at observing and linking patterns.”
“A stalker, you mean.”
“If you prefer that label.” He wraps a hand around mine, pinning it on his chest. “You’re still shaking. Would you like me to drop the subject and let you go back to your safe cocoon like Little Miss Ostrich—”
“I didn’t want to kill myself.” I cut him off. “Yes, I’ve thought about it often, when the pain gets to be too much and I want it to just stop, but I still wouldn’t do it, because I’d regret it. I’d feel shitty for putting my family and friends through that, and maybe it wouldn’t work. What if the pain doesn’t stop, after all? What if it becomes tenfold worse?”
“You won’t feel anything postmortem.”
I snort, actually feeling light for talking to a heartless monster about it instead of someone who’d be hurt by my words. “Is that your idea of consolation?”
“I don’t know how to do that, but here’s what I do know.” He strokes my hand that’s beneath his. “I’ll make sure you never have those thoughts again.”
“Says the one who asked me to throw myself off a cliff so he could take a picture of my fall.”
“But you didn’t. As you said, you don’t want to kill yourself, and I believe you.”
My lips part. He…what?
Why would he believe me? Even I don’t believe myself sometimes. There’s an unreliable narrator in my head who keeps flinging me in all directions.
Forget it.
I’m simply not getting trapped in the web Killian is spinning.
Trying to remain nonchalant, I remove my hand from his hold. “Can you let me finish the initiation now?”
He taps a finger against his thigh. “Why are you so interested in joining our club?”
“Isn’t that where all the cool kids go?”
“Nice try, but no, it obviously isn’t your scene.”
“Because I’m a girl?”
“And a nerd and a scaredy-cat and an introvert. You name it.”
“I…can change.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why would you change? You’re fine the way you are.”
My breath gets caught at the back of my throat. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it as a compliment, which is why it sounds even more like a compliment. Dammit.
The effect he has on me isn’t funny anymore.
“I just want to join the club and add more fun to my life.”
“I’ll be all the fun you need.”
“Arrogant prick.”
“Heard worse.”
“Come on, let me join.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said so. Besides…” He shoves me against the tree and his arms cage me in from both sides. “You owe me one for being nice just now.”
His hand wraps around my waist and he pushes his erection against my stomach. The air crackles with tension as his cock slides up and down the sensitive flesh of my mound.
Clothes separate us, but I feel every stroke to the deepest part of me.
“You…said you’d give me time.” I choke on the word, not able to recognize my voice from the thickness of it.
“And I will. This has nothing to do with that.” He pulls down my top’s strap and it reveals the lace of my bra.
“Mmm. Red. Were you thinking of me when you covered these tits with my favorite color? Did you touch yourself in front of the mirror and come with my name on your lips.”
“N-no…” My shaky fingers slap against his chest, so utterly weak. “And how does this have nothing to do with it when you’re obviously touching me?”
“Never said I wouldn’t. I just said I wouldn’t take your virginity—for now.” He pulls down the other strap and glides his fingers against my bra until he finds the tips of my breasts. “Look at these little nipples being all hard before I’ve even touched them.”
He yanks down the bra to my stomach and I briefly close my eyes as my breasts bounce free. My nipples ache with want, hard and throbbing.
Maybe he’s right and I’m way worse than I thought.
His thumb and forefinger wrap around a nipple and twist. I shudder and clamp my lips against a moan as a zap of pleasure trickles down my stomach and to my pulsing pussy.
“Your tits are gorgeous, baby. All creamy and pink, not to mention they fit perfectly in my hands.” He cups them both, each in a strong palm as if to prove a point. “Mmm. So perky and beautiful, I want to torture them a little.”
He pinches a nipple and I whimper and pretend to push him away, but he pinches again, hard.
I scream, my back flinching against the harshness of the tree. He strokes the nipple, humming in that dark voice, “So sensitive, my little rabbit. I like it.”
He pinches and tugs with brute force, then strokes the pain away like a caring lover. The alternation between pain and pleasure leaves me hazy, and my trembling legs threaten to drop me.
“I bet you’re all soaking wet.” He reaches into my shorts and I bite my lip as his hand meets my underwear. “So fucking drenched, baby. Maybe I should acquaint your cunt with my cock, after all. They obviously need the introduction.”
I stiffen, my heartbeat skyrocketing. “You said you’d give me time.”
“Time is proportional and not exact. In fact, time can be fifteen minutes.”
My heart shrivels with a pang of disappointment that expands all the way to my dropping stomach.
I should’ve never believed him. I really shouldn’t have.
Despite the fear coursing through me, I glare at him. “Do whatever the fuck you want. Just know that I’ll never trust you. Never.”
“Relax.” His voice is casual, easy, even as he rubs both his fingers and his erection against my pussy. “I’ll keep my word.”
For some reason, he sounds sincere, but I know better than to trust the unhinged bastard blindly.
“On the other hand, you’ll give me your mouth.”
“What?”
He points at my mask that’s on the ground. “Sixty-nine is a beautiful number. It’s fate, don’t you think?”
My face heats and I stare at him. “More like an unfortunate coincidence.”
He chuckles and slowly pushes me to the ground. I inspect our surroundings, my heart pounding stronger than usual. “What if someone comes along?”
“I’ll blind their eyes for looking at you naked.”
I want to think he’s joking, but I already know that Killian is the worst type of monster to ever exist.
A gorgeous monster.
A terrifying monster that my body mysteriously comes alive for.
My back meets the grass and I stare up to find the neon mask staring down at me, his knees on either side of my face.