30. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Tyler

" I 'm not over how you're Watcher1988." Not too many things in life can surprise me anymore. This did. This still does. "You were practically begging me to catch you."

It's late at night. Dahlia and I sit in our dimly lit living room. The glow coming from the one floor lamp is enough. Fuck, that's more than enough.

It's everything.

Because when I see Dahlia, I don't need anything else. She's beautiful with her head in my lap, wearing one of my black T-shirts and nothing else. Her hair is damp from the shower we just had together. Still smells of the shampoo I lathered into her long blonde locks.

Her arms are raised between us as she lets me massage her fingers .

Most people need foot massages. Most people don't kill, skin, chop off the flesh and break the bones of twenty-six other people for a few weeks straight.

That's a lot of work for ten small fingers. Even if they're skilled ones. Even if I've been helping her ever since what's-her-face—the one who used to be my neighbor. Dahlia is stubborn and diligent and a perfectionist.

She needs that massage.

She needs me.

Mine.

"Aren't we supposed to be catching Johnathan instead of discussing my secret identity?" She uses the sweet voice her targets hear before she murders them.

"He'll wait."

It's been two days since I found out who he is. Two days that both Dahlia and I sensed we were being watched.

In a way, we like it. Both of us. But tomorrow it ends. All of it.

Tomorrow, we'll have a plan set in motion.

"I want to talk about you." I grow hard beneath her. "You've been sneaky."

"Always am."

"True." The way I massage her wrists and stroke her fingers can be categorized as harsh. I prefer the term possessive. "And you're going to explain yourself to me."

"You should've realized it on your own. Duh." Her large blue eyes stare up at me. Shameless as ever. "I'd been baiting you. I always knew you'd be back to me; I just hadn't realized you'd be so slow. Or that I'd lose my patience."

The teasing edge to her voice has my cock jerking. She wiggles her hands, trying to break free, no doubt, so she could touch me.

"Stalker." I shake my head, clenching my fingers on her hand, steeling her in place. "I was close to punishing you for that secret, except—"

"Except what?" She stops squirming. Not because I grip her tighter. Because she's curious. "What are you hiding?"

This isn't really a secret. The game I designed, the game inspired by her, has been released and sold by the millions.

Dahlia hasn't mentioned it so far. She has no idea. It makes sense, in a way. On the days she was my ward, I told her all about my job. How I was a coder and didn't have a say in the design of the actual game.

She's in for a wild ride.

I'm quiet for over a minute. Possibly an hour. I'm stuck, gazing at those demanding, probing eyes.

"Is it about the first time you killed a person?" Dahlia is locked in place—by my commanding grip on her wrists.

"No."

"I want to talk about that anyway." She nods, almost to herself, and I groan from the friction of her head on my erection. "All these years that I've been watching you, you seemed normal. I mean, other than stalking me and breaking into my apartment. Not a killer. You had your blog, sure, and I figured it was a hobby. That you liked the challenge of finding other killers."

Fuck me, I'll never get over this. How she stalked me.

"That's right." I smirk .

A victorious glint sparkles in her blue eyes. "The thing that bothers me is, how come I never caught you? I didn't see you killing people. There was never a drop of blood on the clothes in your hamper. Basically anywhere. Tell me."

"No big secret. I only killed a handful of people. It would've been easy for you to miss me when I killed them." I squeeze Dahlia's hands, being rough instead of massaging her. I'm turned on. I need her. "I burned my clothes in a barrel downtown."

"Do you remember the first time?"

"Yes." I bite on her middle finger. Just to hear her yelp. And then, since she's far more interesting than I'll ever be, I ask, "Do you?"

"He looked like Al," she hisses. "It pissed me off. Plus, he dragged his wife into the bakery and she had a bruise on her cheek. I stalked him, watched him beating her up worse at their apartment."

Fuck offering Dahlia pity. As much as my heart twists at her pain, I won't do that to her. I suck on her finger, the one I bit. Her cute fangs flash.

"That's how I decided he would be my first." Her chest swells with pride. "That night I didn't have an imaginary Al in my kitchen. He didn't mock me. I didn't feel lonely. And Ty, I see that face you're making. If you say I'm sorry , I'll punch you in the throat. You had your own issues to deal with. Your own reasons. It's okay."

"I watched over you that night. Watched over your shop. I didn't understand why you'd leave that late or why that man wouldn't leave at all." I harden my expression to hide the self- loathing and guilt. "I kept my eye on you throughout the entire month. I called in sick from work that first Halloween morning and camped outside your window. You didn't cry or stay there cursing the memories of Al. I figured you were okay. I'm so—"

"I was okay. I am okay." Dahlia wriggles, trying to lift herself. I shove her back down with a hand on her sternum. "We both did what we had to. Thank you for checking up on me."

"Thank you for not giving up on me," I say in a moment of raw vulnerability.

"As if I had a choice." Blush creeps up her cheeks, despite the sassy remark. "Giving up on one of my limbs would've been easier. I could never. Anyway, you go. Who popped your murder cherry?"

A laugh escapes me. I keep massaging her hands and fingers while I talk.

"Something pushed me to chase down the anonymous man who posted pictures of his dead victims online," I admit. "Other sleuths swore they were about to reveal his identity. None of them were even close. I could tell by their posts and questions. I found the man, though. I hunted him down."

"When was that?" Dahlia attempts to wrangle herself out of my hold again. Her body is a live wire. Anxious and insistent and adorable as fuck.

"Stay."

"No. Let me go, Ty. I—" She twists her head, biting my forearm. I'm shirtless, and her teeth almost break my skin. Crazy little thing. "I need to hug you."

I cock an eyebrow. "Hug me or ride me, little savage? "

Another bite. One that's followed by a low, feral growl.

When I challenge her by holding her tighter, Dahlia opens her legs, throws a foot to the floor. My T-shirt she's wearing hikes up her curvy thighs, giving me a peek of her bare pussy.

Showing me just how wet she is.

Fucking her isn't an option. We'll go at it in the early hours of the morning. I can feel that. Feel how I could be inside her and forget the world exists around us.

The game.

I haul her up by her shoulders, arrange her on my lap with her back to my front.

She wiggles to turn her head to me. That's as much as I allow her.

The rest of her body is locked in a tight grip. Safe in my arms.

"Four years ago." My lips brush her temple when I talk. "It happened four years ago."

"Right after…" The sentence ends there. Unfinished.

Dahlia and I know the rest without her articulating the words.

Right after Ian went on a killing rampage.

Right after I tried to save what was left of my world—her—by walking away.

"Yes." With my free hand, I stroke Dahlia's hair, moving it behind her back so I can press a kiss on her shoulder. That settles her, and her body relaxes into mine. "He lived in Brooklyn. I got that from the backdrop of one of his photos."

"Rookie mistake." She rolls her eyes, giggling .

"Anyway—wait, Dahl." Before I go on, I have to loosen my grip on her. This night won't end with my story. It'll end when I show her the game. "Grab the remote from the coffee table for me. And the game controllers."

A burst of excitement fires through her. I sense it in the way her body tenses. From how it propels into action.

"Good girl." I accept the remote. Click a few buttons. The game—our game—comes up on the screen. "So. He was taking another one of his pictures when I showed up. He didn't see me coming. Had no idea I was there until I wrapped the barbed wire I brought with me around his throat. Until blood dripped down the collar of his shirt. I took him out that night, although it didn't do any good. It was too late. The lady he murdered wasn't coming back."

"You saved a lot of others, Ty," Dahlia offers reassurances.

She believes what she's saying too. But her heart's not in it. Her voice is hushed, and when I glance at her profile, her lips are slightly parted. Eyes wide as she stares at the images on the screen.

At us.

A version of us, anyway. No one would recognize it's either her or me. No one other than the two people in this room.

The woman's raven black hair is styled in a short bob. The man's—mine—is curly and auburn. Her eyes are green while mine are sky blue. My character has nothing more than two inches over hers.

I did everything I could to mask her identity. Including her profession .

But Dahlia knows. She grips her controller tight, her knuckles white. When I hug her and reach for the second controller she placed in her lap, I feel her heart beating. The ribs in her back expanding.

"I'm Sonja. An orphan, an abuse survivor. No one should go through what I did. It happened, though, and I can't undo that. What I'm here for is to save others. Take down the bad guys. In my favorite playground. Here, where I work."

Dahlia's quiet, rubbing a foot on my calf absentmindedly.

"I'm nameless," starts the second main character. "Brought to this world with one mission and one mission only. Help Sonja if she ever needs me. I…" he goes on after that.

The speech I wrote for myself is a familiar one. And even if it'd have been the first I'm hearing it, listening to Dahlia takes precedence.

"That first person," she starts, her voice hushed. "Did you like killing him?"

"Well. I could've gotten him locked up." Her energy is intoxicating. I shut the hell up for a second to lick the curve of her neck. Put my lips in the delicate spot where her throat meets her shoulder and suck. Her shiver makes every part of me hard. "I've had enough evidence to hand over to the police. I didn't. I hated myself for how good it felt. How righteous I'd been when I drained his life out of him. When I killed others like him. I couldn't stop. So, yeah, I did like it."

Neither she nor I click on the start button on our game controllers. We don't speak for a long time, not even to comment on the monologue delivered by the characters .

"You weren't fucked in the head. You aren't fucked in the head. Neither of us is." Conviction flares through her words. Her bright blue eyes sparkle when she looks at me instead of the television. "You coped. That's what killing other people did for you. It drowned that voice in your head. The stupid one that said you couldn't protect me. That's why you came. You got as close as you could to shutting him up. Tell me you can see that."

Not a second passes between the moment she ends her monologue and the moment I crush my lips to hers. With a hand on her hips, I yank her to my front, have her ass flush against my cock. I toss the controller on the couch, my palm curling into a hand necklace around her throat.

"Your brain is such a fucking turn-on," I grit when I pull back for air. "I don't care that I'm fucked in the head. If that's what's brought me back to you, I'm happy."

Her bottom lip juts out in a pout. "You're not fucked in the head."

A slow smile creeps over my lips. "I don't care that you are too. I love that about you."

"Shut up. Am not."

I tilt her face to me with my thumb. My hand necklace chokes her. Blood rushes to my cock with each gasp Dahlia takes. She fights for air, and fuck, I can't wait for a lifetime of this.

"Little savage. Whatever you are, I love it. I love you." I keep her in place, getting high on the control I have over her. "After so many years, it's a fucking privilege to have you here. Love you the way I want to. Without the nagging fear in the back of my head. Without the pressure on my lungs. And yes, I see what you were saying. I might've had to get my hands dirty to come back to you. Go over the deep end. Doesn't matter. I have no regrets. Don't care what it says about me, as long as I have you."

"I love you too."

One last kiss and, "Enough of that. Eyes on the screen."

"On us." She turns to the television at rapid speed.

"Yes."

"I'm a—" Her head snaps back to me, nose scrunched, then back to the screen again. "A librarian. I kill people in a library and you…" Her body shudders. She sucks in a deep breath, her chest expanding. There's a difference, I imagine, between listening to the characters tell their story and how the words taste on her tongue. "You're helping me. You're helping me get rid of the bodies and run from the police."

"For anything at all." My arms are long enough to wrap around Dahlia and retrieve my game controller. "That's what I'm there for."

She grips hers even tighter. Forces down the shudders. Waits for my instructions.

"Our characters talk while we run through the library and kill people. Other than visiting you at night and stalking you, this was my only real connection to you for the longest time. How I could talk to you."

"I've been so stupid." Dahlia's thumbs brush across the game controller. Eager to start. "Back then, you said you were writing code. That the executives were the ones who come up with the characters and games. I never thought to check them out."

"You're the farthest thing from stupid." I have the remote in one hand while I find the hem of her shirt with the other. Drag the fabric up her thighs. Just a little. The lightest touch to make her body jerk. "You couldn't have known."

Then I press two fingers to her swollen clit. Then I hear her moan. "M-hmm."

"So." My fingers drag up and down. Teasing her. Torturing her. "What do you think?"

I don't have to ask. I've heard and felt and listened to her body talking to me. But I'm a greedy bastard. I need her words.

I need her on my cock just the same. Discarding the controller for the millionth time, I lift Dahlia. Take myself out and yank her to me. My dick is hard and thick between her butt cheeks.

Maybe I will fuck her tonight. Maybe staying up isn't such a bad idea after all.

"I think," she says, choked and needy and determined. "I want to play."

Dahlia clicks the start button. We're thrown right into a dark library. One that's as huge and impressive as the New York Public Library. Except there's no open space in the library I designed. No two floors, either.

The first thing we see is the elaborate maze of bookshelves from the bird's eye view. Five seconds later, we're landing at the entrance to the maze.

"Which way is it, little savage? Left or right? "

She's not in control, not really. I just like giving her the illusion that she does.

Her life and everything in it are mine.

"Hmm." She considers my question. "Umm…"

I place my game controller over her pussy. My role in this game doesn't require hitting a few buttons at once. Not until she acts.

In the meantime, I touch her.

"You're soaking." I slide my fingers into her heat. Run my nose along her neck. Drag my fingers up and slap her swollen pussy. "But a soaking cunt won't give me the answers I want. Which. Way?"

It takes her a couple of seconds to stop squirming and moaning. Could be because I'm pinching her clit and rubbing it with my thumb and index finger.

"Where's the worst—" Dahlia groans, rocking her hips. "The worst villain?"

When I look down at the front of Dahlia's body, I see the peaks of her nipples stretching my T-shirt. The goosebumps that rake her soft thighs.

I could do better.

I am doing better.

I spit on my hand, reach between Dahlia and me to rub my saliva on my cock. She rolls her head back to my shoulder when I'm done.

Oh, fuck, that's it. That effortless sliding between her butt cheeks. To be enveloped by her heat.

"Left," I grit out .

Dahlia doesn't question me. She takes us in that direction. I press the button that'll make my character auto-follow her. Her bodyguard, among other things.

With my hands back on her hips and her cunt, I hold her, slide my dick without penetration.

My woman isn't a warrior like the character on the screen. Not this minute, anyway. She's an adorable mess. Her fingers press the buttons angrily. Breaths are clipped from the soft strokes of my fingers on her clit. Her body jerks with every thrust of mine.

Precum leaks from the head of my cock. Pressure builds in my balls.

Her clit is hard, throbbing. She's dripping on me.

And we continue watching the screen. Never taking our eyes off it.

Tall bookshelves reach for the ceiling. Dahlia, breathless and full of need, tilts the head of her character up. Paintings hang high up on the walls. Dust specks float in the dimming light of the day.

I thought of everything. I wanted it to be perfect.

Dahlia deserved nothing less.

"Wow." Maybe the spiders sliding between the bookshelves. Maybe the crows flying close to the ceiling. Could be the hooded dark people in the oil paintings. Or maybe it's a reaction to me. To my impatience and how hard I shove her down my cock. "Wow."

"I had to—" I grunt when her pretty pussy squeezes my dick. She spreads her legs wider, an invitation if I've ever seen it. So I fuck her from beneath her. Balls deep. Every fucking time. "Created it like this for you. You're mine, little savage. And I take care of what's mine. Everything there, everything that I am, is for you."

Her orgasm hits her hard. Her character stumbles and the man we're chasing turns to face us. He smiles and his teeth are yellow and crooked. Before he has a chance to advance on us, I grab Dahlia's game controller.

She's still moaning and begging for me. I hug her tighter and press a few buttons until the hand of her character grasps onto old book spines and straightens.

The miserable gray-haired villain sees her recuperating. The coward whips around and flees.

"W-who was that?" she asks.

I'm not done with Dahlia, so I pass her the game controller. Grip her hips, dragging her sweet cunt up and down my cock.

"Ty, who are we killing?"

Her character raises a sharp butcher knife. I haven't seen her select it. Yes, I've been looking straight ahead. But my head, it's deep inside Dahlia's pussy. Desperate to give her another orgasm.

"He tortures kids." Talking about him makes my chest grow tight. My hand slides up to Dahlia's throat, bringing her to me where I can nip the shell of her ear. "His niece and nephew."

Dahlia stops breathing for a second. I feel the air lodging in her throat and lock my fingers on her delicate neck to catch her next inhale.

Mine . All of it is mine .

"I made them turn on each other." Al's character—who looks nothing like him—peeks his ugly head from behind one of the bookshelves. "Someday soon, they'll eat each other's flesh. I'll have a ball witnessing it."

Even though I was the one who wrote the repulsive dialogues, I'm no less disgusted by it.

"The fuck he will." Dahlia's fear quickly morphs into hate. She growls. The need to rip a man's heart out is there. I almost come from how strong and ruthless the woman in my arms is. "I'll snap his neck. It's his flesh I'll eat."

Dahlia's character breaks into a run.

I have to help her, unlike those times I tried and failed in real life. Have to be there in case he plays dirty. Which he will. I designed him to be the worst of them.

His true face will forever be out there. I made sure of that.

In the past, while the fucker was alive, he wore a charming smile and said sweet words to the social services. No one suspected.

Not anymore.

"Do it, baby." I lift my hips while she hurls her character forward. While she turns to the right, chasing this version of her uncle. "Maim that piece of shit. Make him pay."

"I will." Dahlia is too invested in the game to stop when I shove her impossibly lower on my cock. She moans and clenches around me, but doesn't let up. My pretty little huntress. "This is for Ian."

"For Ian." My arms envelop her middle, pinning her to me while I drive in and out of her ruthlessly. It's for him, sure, except he's not the one I think about. The one I'm fucking. " Jesus fuck, Dahlia, you're soaking. Is it for me, or are you that excited about killing him?"

"You should already know." She's getting closer to him. "I'm wet in my sleep for you."

I have to help. My hands clutch the game controller. My fingers click the buttons that would arm me with my weapon of choice—a butcher's knife.

Her character keeps running through the bookshelves maze.

"Tyler," she breathes my name. Calling me.

"What is it, beautiful?"

"You can—oh, no. I can't hold it." My cock hits the spot that has her moaning louder. "I'm coming."

Dahlia's body strains before another orgasm catches her by surprise. Her scream is delicious. Her body is a quivering mess.

We catch a glimpse of the bastard on the screen. I don't go after him. I have her to take care of.

And she has a game to win.

"Don't you dare stop." I pull her tighter to me. "Keep playing. You're going to kill him. Then you're going to come on my cock another time."

"I"—deep breath—"if you'd like, you can help me get my revenge."

"Baby." The invitation is as hot as having her orgasm soak me. As having her pussy clench around my dick. "I'm here for you. I'm never leaving."

My character slides into place next to hers. My teeth—my real teeth—sink into my T-shirt Dahlia's wearing. But it's not enough. It's not fucking cutting it for me .

Releasing the controller for a second is a necessity. I have to rip the T-shirt off her.

I'll die if I don't.

"We're coming for you." She growls one second, gasps the next when I tear the collar of her T-shirt. I rip it right down the middle. "You're a dead man."

"You'll never catch me, nerd," his character calls out from somewhere in the maze. Saying the line I fed to it. "No one will."

"Motherfucker." The more Dahlia curses, the hotter I get. I'm feral for this girl. "You'll be my spider's dinner. They feed on roaches. That's what you are. A fucking cockroach."

I have my teeth locked on the bare skin of her shoulder. Dahlia cries out in surprise. I don't aim to brand her this time. I aim to break the skin. Draw blood. Suck on Dahlia's life force and have her swimming in my bloodstream.

This isn't normal.

It's been a while since I considered myself as one.

"Yes, Tyler, please," Dahlia gasps louder when I return to fucking her like the animal she's turned me into. "Fuck me. Help me. Be mine."

"Easiest thing I've ever had to do." Copper. I have her blood on my tongue. I feel its richness on my lips. "You taste so good, little savage." Dahlia's next moan is louder and a million times more delicious. "Do you realize that?"

"Please."

As our characters prowl through the wide paths inside the maze, I buck my hips and bury myself inside Dahlia. It's so good. So hot. I could fuck and love and pleasure her for the rest of my life.

I will do that.

"There he is," Dahlia gasps.

Or it's me talking. Either way, we both have our weapons up. Wielding them in the face of the asshole who has the balls to smile at us. Even when he reaches a dead end.

A tall, white wall blocks him from moving forward. Tall, sturdy bookshelves cage him on each side.

"Nowhere to run." He can't hear Dahlia. So? She can. She's the one who gets to enjoy it, and nothing else matters. "You'll die soon. You'll die, and Tyler will fuck a baby into me. Full fucking circle. Full. Motherfucking. Circle."

"That's what you want?" We prowl toward him. I move my lips on her shoulder, unable to pull back. The taste of her blood is too intoxicating to quit. "You want me to fill you with babies?"

"I've always wanted that."

"You lose, librarian." The nauseating grin on the game's Al's face twists into a sneer. "No matter what you do, you lose."

"Since I was a kid." Dahlia can hardly talk. Her words are desperate breaths. That's how hard and fast I'm rutting into her from below. "Since the first time I saw you, Ty, I've been dreaming about—"

The moment we reach him, the game controllers vibrate, alerting us that danger is near. That's the moment I press my controller to Dahlia's clit. Her lips .

"I've dreamed about being your wife." She starts riding me the instant her knife burrows deep into our enemy's chest. "Don't stop. Please, don't stop."

Blood drops that resemble real ones splatter on Al's clothes. On the wood floor of the library.

"About having babies with you. Sick little fucks like you and I. Your turn. Hit him."

Her character moves jerkily to the side. It's an effort for both of us to press the right buttons while Dahlia bounces on my cock.

"You keep riding me hard like that, you'll have two by this time next year."

"You said triplets." Dahlia half-moans, half-giggles when I go for Al's forehead. More blood gushes out, splashing on the screen. "You promised."

"You'll have them," I groan, burying myself as far as my cock reaches. Until her walls clench on me and her pain vibrates through her every pore. "Anything you want."

Her knife slashes into his throat. Rivulets of red, thick fluid cascade down his body. The child abuser stumbles back, his ass hitting the floor.

Boom .

"I'm not done…with you." Dahlia's knife finds Al's left eye. The right one. A nauseating sound blasts through the speakers. Not as loud as that of her wet pussy riding my cock. "Piece of shit."

I go next, though it's getting difficult. So fucking difficult. Moreso, since I don't care what happens to Al anymore. I just need Dahlia. I'm possessed with the idea of marking her from the inside out.

I'm desperate to find out if our kids will have her eyes. Her temper. Her resilience.

But since she's asked me to handle Al together, I do my best. My character leans over and grabs Fake Earl's cock through his pants.

"No," he mewls, reaching forward.

I step on his hand. "Chop it off." This order is for Dahlia. "Chop the goddamn thing off before I come deep inside your womb. Before you come on my cock like the good fucking girl you are."

"Yes," Dahlia screams while her pussy clenches and unclenches on my cock. Milking me with her orgasm. "Yes."

My remote goes flying to the floor. I come so hard that every nerve ending in my body is on fire. Every part of me comes when I shoot my seed inside her.

Fake Al's character chokes on its own blood.

It dies.

The game announces we've beat one monster.

Neither of us cares.

"I love you." I kiss her wounded, bleeding flesh. Lick the remaining blood off her shoulder.

"I love you." Dahlia lets me lift her off my cock. Trembles in my hold when I push my seed back inside her pussy.

"Tomorrow, we're planning." Her eyes are droopy. Her arms are heavy on my neck as I carry her to our bed. "We have to catch Johnathan. "

"We will." Once we're both tucked in, I fold her into me. Hug her as hard as I ever had. Give her my warmth. Give this woman my goddamn soul. "Tomorrow night. We'll have a plan. Together."