Chapter 15

L ooking away from her with that leash around her neck is hard. I lead her out to her Honda Civic behind the house, holding out a gas can towards her as she looks over the wreckage from the night I took her.

It’s been nine days since I ran her off the road and dragged her up the hill to Grimrose House, and I don’t regret it in the slightest.

She has exceeded every expectation I’ve ever had. However, I gave up on expecting a thing a long time ago. People have always let me down, not Grace.

She’s perfect.

There’s a glimmer of awareness in her eyes, too—one that says she’ll come around to my lifestyle with time. Grace is a psychopath’s dreamgirl, and I’m glad she happened to take a detour through Dunhaven when she did, or I’d have never found her .

That would’ve been a fucking shame.

“You want me to burn my car?” she asks me, gazing at the can still outstretched in my hand.

“I already put your purse and phone back in there. Your old life will go up in flames. Then we’ll go get your new documents.”

She looks back to the car, absently grabbing the can from me as she riddles it all out.

I expected a fight from her. Giving up the past and starting fresh is hard. I know that.

She clears her throat, shuffling toward the car as she pours the gas all over it. Her leash dangles down her back in the wind, her silky blonde hair dancing against the cold breeze.

When the can drips and the car is covered, she tosses it on top of the heap of metal. “What do you want me to light it with?”

I crook my finger, beckoning her toward me.

I give her a match, holding the book to strike against, watching her intently. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret,” I tell her when I watch a flicker of defiance light in her hazel eyes.

She licks her lips, striking the match. She stares into the tiny flame momentarily before turning slowly, protecting it against the wind with her hand as she approaches the symbol of her old life, the old her. When she tosses it, I think the damn thing went out when it doesn’t immediately catch .

Soon, though, the fire bursts to life, and Grace backs toward me, her back hitting my chest.

I lean down. “The fire will burn away all that you were, puppet. You’ll belong to me when you walk home like a good girl on your leash. For good.”

My hand slinks around her front, fingers grabbing at the collar connected to her leash, tugging as a breath escapes her.

I back us away from the car before the gas tank catches. Grace still watches as the flames engulf all she was nine days ago.

Using my hold on her collar, I turn her around, tugging her close.

“What name will you take?” I ask her.

Emotion floats in her eyes, tears brimming. Change is hard even when you know it’s coming, so I’ll allow her the momentary show of weakness even if it grates my nerves.

“What name?” she asks.

I nod. “We’re going to get your new documents today. You’ll need a new name.”

“What name do you want me to take?” Her voice is meek and unsure. I don’t like it—not when I’ve come to like her bratty mouth and witty comebacks.

“Grace, I think. It’s what suits you. You’ll take my last name.”

She swallows against the tips of my fingers curled under her collar. “Grace Moldova. ”

I can’t help myself. I growl as I lean down and tug her face to mine.

The car behind us explodes as the fire reaches the fuel tank. Neither of us bristles. We’re too caught up in the fire breeding between us as I hover over her mouth.

“Would you like that, puppet?” I ask her, my lips ghosting over hers.

She nods, pushing forward to close the distance.

I pull back, teasing her—my favorite thing.

A small whimper of need escapes her.

I smirk.

“Will I be your wife or just your plaything?”

She licks her lips, and I wonder what it would be like to be her tongue, to feel each etched crevice of her lips so tenderly.

“You’d be more than my wife, darling.” I tug her back to my mouth, taunting her with a drag of my tongue over her lower lip.

“More than your wife?” she breathes against my mouth.

“I’ll own you. Possess you like you’re a piece of my soul. Our connection will go far beyond a piece of paper, my perfect puppet.”

Her shallow breathing has her grasping for anything she can hold onto, and her hands dig into the sides of my shirt for stability.

When I seal my lips on hers, what’s between us feels like the flames licking at her past right behind us. It’s been frantic with her since I laid eyes on her, and I have a feeling it always will be.

Her tongue glides between my lips greedily, seeking more. Searching. I open and smirk against her kiss as she tosses her arms around my neck, kissing me as if it’s her pass into heaven.

This kiss is the beginning of something, I realize.

She’s letting go of what was and embracing what will be.

I lift her, and she wraps her legs around me.

“I knew you were going to be my perfect girl when I first laid eyes on you,” I tell her, walking down the hill and out of the woods toward my truck.

Dunhaven P.D. returned it to me shortly after they’d brought Grace back.

I drop her onto her feet again and break our heated kiss. “Wait here.”

She looks at me inquisitively as I open the passenger door and rummage in the glove box, snagging handcuffs out and slamming the door behind me as I head back toward her.

She eyes the handcuffs and toys with her collar.

Even though I’d love to hang her from the winch of my tow truck by her collar, it would kill her. Never getting to play with Grace again or feel her cum dripping down my cock would be a damned shame.

“Hands in front of you, puppet.”

She doesn’t hesitate, and something in my chest blooms. I choose to ignore it, working the cuffs on her hands.

“Hands above your head,” I tell her, grabbing the hook and chain on the boom to connect between her cuffs.

Using the buttons on the side of the truck, I tighten the cables holding her, hearing her squeal as tension holds her arms above her head.

I leave her dangling over the ground by a few inches, her shoulders struggling to hang against her weight.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

The words sound foreign from my mouth. They’d even tasted a bit acidic. As much as I’m changing her, she’s fucking with me.

“Cain,” she says, looking apprehensively at how far above the ground she is.

“Mm?” I ask, tugging her pants down and strumming two fingers through her pussy lips.

“You have a thing with strings,” she breathes.

“Strings, cables, chains. Especially when it comes to you,” I admit, relishing in the unholy noise she makes when I glide two fingers inside her heat.

“Why?” she asks as she wraps one of her legs behind my ass to try and encourage me to work my fingers deeper.

I smirk. “I don’t know. Perhaps I enjoy seeing you suspended so I can play with you. Maybe it’s how you look displayed for me—like a flawless painting I get to worship like you’re the stained glass of a gothic cathedral. ”

She scoffs. “Do they have churches in hell?”

I hook my fingers, curling them against her G-spot, making her quiver and cry out. “Behave, darling. Or master won’t let you come.”

“I’m sorry,” she pleads, her body shaking as she loses her grip on me with her leg.

She swings away from me, and I don’t catch her. My fingers slide out of her, and I step back, watching her sway as I lick her flavor off them.

“The things we’re going to do, puppet. The places I’m going to take you…” I trail off as she grapples with her feet to touch the ground, her toes almost making it.

She’s not listening to me.

Stalking closer, I grab onto her collar. “Pay attention to me!” I snarl, pulling her face to face with me.

Her eyes grow heady. “I am paying attention to you, Cain. I’m always paying attention. Even when I’m asleep, I know that you’re near because my body still pays attention. It’s all I can do. You’re becoming the only thing I can give my attention to.”

Her words are filled with malice even though my stomach twists gleefully at them.

“You say it as if you don’t like it.”

“Does anyone like to be consumed by someone to this magnitude?”

Her question becomes a riddle in my brain, swirling my thoughts in circles.

“I do,” I realize. “I think this is what I’ve been searching for, puppet—this enthralling, ardent connection that we have.”

She’s struggling on the tow chain, her shoulders likely burning, and the idea of her pain has blood filling my cock.

I lift her, and she wraps her legs around me, her wet core and shivering body shuddering as my hardness presses against her center.

“Cain, it’s cold.”

Her blatant disregard of my words is welcomed because I don’t know what bullshit she has me spewing. I believe it’s how she blew up her past to go into the future with me that has me reeling.

Though I’ve never had a sentimental bone in my body, I know things with her will be different. Choosing to keep her is going to alter my reality. It’s already begun.

“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll keep you warm.”

Reaching between us, I work my cock out of my pants, sliding it through her bare lips, working into her entrance.

Warmth encapsulates my length as she swallows me whole.

“Fuck, always so wet for me, puppet.”

She has to be aching from her punishment, but she gives no tell she is. Her mouth opens, moans spilling out and swathing around my sick soul as I bend my knees and fuck into her.

My cock thrusts in and out, and her walls ripple around me. My grunts aren’t enough to relieve the overwhelming urge to maim, bite, or cut. Neither is the punishing drive of my hips.

“You’re too much. This is too fucking much. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” My lips spill the truth of the distress plaguing me since I ran her off the road nine days ago.

Running my nose down the underside of her arm, I open my mouth and let my teeth skim over the fabric of her jacket before I bare them and sink them into her body.

Even through the jacket, she feels my bite.

“God, Cain!” It’s not a painful scream but rather a plea for more.

I continue my onslaught on her cheek, and this time, the wail is a gut-wrenching one.

I fuck her harder, reaching between us as I rub her clit, working her closer.

Her head falls back, exposing her throat to me, and I dive in, inhaling her scent.

When my teeth sink into her neck, her sharp cry shoots along my dick as if she’s tugged it.

We come together, the pitiless way I just fucked her, leaving her raw, and she hisses when I pull out of her.

I step back, watching my cum leak out of her pussy and down the inside of her thighs. “Fuck, puppet, I’ve always been one with a preference for blood. I love to watch women bleed, knowing that I caused their pain. But watching you dripping my nut from that perfect cunt makes me feel hysteric. Obsessed. Manic. Push more out for me.”

Even though she’s in pain and struggling on the chains, she spreads her legs the best she can and works her muscles, causing a little gush of cum to expel.

I drop to my knees beneath her, locking eyes with her as she looks down at me, pupils blown as her body shivers in pain. My tongue purls through the mixed flavors of both our cum leaking out of her, savoring our blended tang.

Once I’ve made her come for me again, I unchain her and take her inside.

We clean up and get dressed again, this time making it inside the truck to meet my contact two towns over for her new documents. For a while, I wondered if she’d changed her mind about me. Even though I know I have the resources and wit to keep her hostage for as long as I want to, I want her to stay of her own volition.

Something depraved in me wants her to consent to her torture.

Then, she lays over the truck seat, resting her head in my lap, and my body goes rigid even though my insides unfurl.

A smirk tugs my lips up as I focus on the road and not her soft, sleepy snores as she falls asleep on the lap of a psychopath.

This might work.