7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Bastion
T hick tears poured down Clara’s rosy cheeks. Schei?e. She was so pretty when she cried. I hadn’t seen her shed tears since the second grade when Timmy Brown stole her Christmas candy on the playground.
“Is that why you’ve been stalking me lately? Because you thought you were protecting me?”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Clara.”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “You know what? Fuck you. Or however you say that in German.”
“Fick dich.”
“ Fick dich , asshole.” She swore at me in my first language and topped off the insult by flipping me off.
Clara was pretty when she cried, but she was even prettier when she stood up for herself.
It made my cock so goddamn hard.
She continued with her rant. She was angry, sure, but there was no missing the relief banked in her eyes. Like she was finally safe to let her true feelings out.
“You thought you were helping but you just made everything worse. Hogan was pissed tonight because he thought I was cheating on him with you.”
My brows furrowed. “How? We’re never together.”
“Yet you’re always hanging around the shop for some reason. He thought you had me bent over my desk on the nights I worked late.”
My cock ached again as I imagined it, but even as my dick thickened, something akin to guilt set it. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help the feeling that you needed someone to watch your back.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard!” she snapped. “I can take care of myself. I can save myself.”
I couldn’t help but hope my inscription in the book I’d gifted her had inspired her to stand up to Hogan. Then again, she’d always had it in her. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I… A while, okay? I don’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t matter anymore anyway, the fucker is dead and I have a body to hide. So are you gonna help or not?”
A while.
The answer was vague yet it told me everything I needed to know. Long enough that she didn’t want to think about it. The couple had seemed happy before Clara’s mom passed. Clara then focused on her dream of saving up money to buy her mom’s old commercial building and Hogan, being the needy baby he was, started to drink from the lack of his fiancé's attention. Then came the obvious shift in his personality. That was two years ago.
The knife of guilt sank deeper into my ribs. Had Clara been abused by Hogan for two whole years? Fuck. Why hadn’t I figured it out sooner? I loved that she hadn’t ended up needing me in the end, but I could have saved her so much pain if I’d noticed…
Maybe if I didn’t focus so much on keeping the Krampus locked beneath my skin, my knack for sniffing out motherfuckers in need of punishment would be stronger.
My fists clenched at my sides and another German curse barreled out with my frustrated snarl.
Clara took a step back, probably thinking I was angry at her. “You don’t have to help me. I didn’t answer your question. Just… Don’t tell anyone. Please? I mean, if I end up in prison—” her voice trembled and cracked. “Fine. I deserve it. I mean, yes, he was trash, but I killed a man. A man with a family. A man who once, a long time ago, made me happy. But if this town is as magical as everyone says it is this time of year, and some bat-shit Christmas miracle comes true, I want to stay here in Leavenworth. With…With you.”
Her confession had my cock blazing hot in my jeans while the ice around my heart seemed to melt some.
“I won’t tell anyone, Clara.” I stepped closer to her and this time she didn’t step away. I reached out, brushing her cheek—her tear tracks now crusted with ice—and swept a lock of hair behind her ear. “Now. How are we doing this?”
She looked up at me with sparkly eyes and the monster beneath my skin groaned, yearning to taste her.
It felt so fucking good to finally touch her.
“The hogs,” she whispered. “They eat everything. Even bones.”
“Then let’s feed the hogs.” I shoved the candy cane in my mouth with a toothy grin curling around the surgery shaft. “They’re gonna eat good tonight.”
I instructed her to grab a tarp from the garage to wrap his body up and tossed it into the cart attached to the ATV Hogan drove around the farm.
Fortunately, according to Clara, he drove it to the barn all the time. So any tracks left in the snow wouldn’t be suspicious, especially if we left the ATV parked in front. As if he’d never gone back to the house.
Luckily, the cart already had a few empty beer cans inside. Conclusions would be drawn without much investigation.
“I’ll get the body,” I told her as I hopped off the ATV and crossed around to the back of the cart, bundling up the plastic-wrapped body in my arms.
“I’ll help,” she insisted, grabbing Hogan by his legs. “He’s a heavy bastard.”
I chuckled, knowing that I could easily carry both of them, one over each shoulder, even in my unshifted state. But I let her help as we shuffled into the barn, a symphony of oinking pigs excitedly greeting us knowing a meal was on its way.
“Will they eat his clothing?”
“Hogs will eat just about anything,” she grunted as we dumped the body into the pig pen and watched the beasts swarm their owner. “If they're hungry enough, and they are. Ever since Hogan started drinking he’s been pretty shit about taking care of them. Especially during the holidays with his ham shop. Refuses to hire extra help. Cheap jerk.”
“Hogan’s not so happy hogs,” I muttered as we watched them tear into their meal.
Casting a side-long glance at Clara, I was surprised to find a smile on her blood-splattered face.
I always thought I was the one with the monster locked inside. Turns out, Clara was also quite the little beast when pushed.
“I’m finally free,” she sighed. “Ya know, on the off chance I get away with all this…”
“You will get away with it. You just have to be careful. We’ll finish cleaning, then in the morning you can call the police and report that you fell asleep and Hogan never came back in from feeding the hogs. They’ll come over, ask you a few questions. No one will be surprised that he passed out drunk in the hog pen.”
She chewed her plush lip with thought and I couldn’t help but think what her perfect mouth would feel like against my flesh. Clara was fucking beautiful to the point where it was almost painful to look at her.
The monster inside me especially loved how she looked covered in blood.
I wasn’t exactly a Christmas fantastic, but goddamn, did I love the color red. It especially looked good on her. Blushing cheeks. Blood-splattered lips.
Turning, I leaned against the fence so she wouldn’t see the tent in my jeans. Watching her covered in gore, feeding her abusive ex to his pigs was doing wicked things to me.
“Thank you for the book. I haven’t even read it yet but…” She turned to me, tears once again brimming her eyes. When her attention landed on me, her smile brightened, and the demon inside me paced back and forth impatiently.
“I guess I should go inside and clean up the mess in the kitchen.”
She started to turn away from the pig pen but I caught her by her coat. She paused to pin me with a look that had me stepping closer. Instead of pulling away like she always did when I got too close, she shuffled nearer to me.
I stroked my thumb over the edge of her jaw, marveling at how soft her flesh was. “Are you going to be okay?”
Clara peered up at me like I’d asked a silly question. Maybe it was. “How am I supposed to be okay after something like this? What am I supposed to do exactly? Sleep for a week? Drink myself stupid?”
She took a breath like she was familiarizing herself with being honest about how she actually felt for the first time in years. “I don’t want any of that shit.”
“Then what do you want, Clara?”
She shook her head, as if to dismiss the thought that came to her mind. “It’s gonna make me sound crazy.”
“I just fucking watched you murder the town’s beloved honied ham man and helped you feed his body to his own hogs. Pretty sure that ship has sailed.”
Despite all odds, she laughed. Mein Gott. The sound was heaven.
“Alright. You know what I want? To disappear into one of my books, literally. I want some dark romance hero to kidnap me and take me away from this place and give me the dicking of my life. And I know—” Her cheeks flushed and her gaze flitted away, unable to hold eye contact. “I know it sounds crazy, fantasizing about being kidnapped after being stuck in an abusive relationship.”
I gently gripped her chin and guided her attention back to me. “That’s not crazy. You’re allowed to fantasize about what you fucking want.”
“I don’t know…” she hedged. “You have no idea how twisted the books I read can get.”
She hadn’t the slightest idea that I read many of the same books I’d caught her entranced by at work. I knew exactly what kind of books she liked, what kind of deliciously depraved things she read about.
“I have an idea.” I smirked. “The one I got you is a dark monster romance where the rat king gets the girl. I almost got you a Krampus one instead.”
At that, she bounced on her heels in excitement. “I want to read that one too! I love Krampus. But not for the same reasons everyone else in this town likes him.”
With a giggle, her cheeks flamed and a new smell flooded the air—the candy-sweet smell of her arousal.
Clara liked the Krampus. No, she more than liked the Krampus. She was turned on by him.
That info went straight to my balls and I had to bite back a hungry growl. “If only Krampus was real. Then he could be the one to kidnap you to the mountains. He punishes the naughty, after all.”
The thick blonde lashes framing Clara’s eyes fluttered, and the traces of her arousal spiked. Her attention slid to the feasting pigs, and something I parsed as shame etched her face. A barn filled with squealing hogs wasn’t exactly a prime place for the dirty thoughts that were surely filling her pretty head. Especially considering what the pigs were eating.
I didn’t care. Not wanting the moment to be over, I gave her an encouraging smirk. “What if it was the Krampus who kidnapped you to the mountains? Threw you in a cage? Made you his special pet.? Not for long… just for Christmas.”
“I’d…” Her face was on fire with a delicious hue of shame and lust, making my mouth water. “This is embarrassing to admit, but… I’d like it. I mean, I wouldn’t want him to actually hurt me,” she gushed, a combination of nerves and excitement making the words spill out of her like a faucet.
It had to feel great, not having to watch what she said for constant fear that Hogan was lurking around the corner.
“In my books, the heroes aren’t usually good guys, but they’d burn the world down for their girl. So yeah. I guess if the Krampus was real, and if he by some chance had that long tongue and a heart of gold? Then, yes. I’d let him stuff me in that sack of his and beat me with whatever stick he’s packing. There, happy?” She huffed. “Now that you’ve watched me murder a man and confess my most embarrassing fantasy, you have all the dirt you could possibly want on Leavenworth’s favorite florist.”
Oh, I had so much more than dirt on her. Or, at least I would soon.
“You should get some rest,” I urged, eager to change the subject before I ripped off her clothes and fucked her here in the hog shed. “I’ll finish the cleanup outside.”
When she seemed hesitant I added, “I’ll do a very thorough job, Clara. I’m not exactly looking to get an accessory to murder conviction for Christmas this year.”
She hesitated for another beat, then sighed. “Alright…”
I walked her to the front door of Hogan’s farm house and before going inside she turned toward me and her eyes darkened. “I would probably have gotten caught if it weren’t for you helping to cover everything up. Thank you. I’ll never forget this, Bastion.”
Then, she pushed onto her tip toes and pressed her lips to mine in a kiss I’d imagined a hundred times before. Her lips were soft and tasted of the medicated lip balm she used during the winter months to keep her lips from chapping.
When she pulled away, I fought the urge to tug her back into my arms and never let her go.
I shouldn’t have said the words that were burning the tip of my tongue. Maybe it was the mischievous nature of the Krampus, forcing them out. She had a way of drawing out the demon from where I kept him buried deep inside.
“Don’t thank me, Clara.” I licked my lips, lapping up lingering traces of her taste. “There will be a price for this.”