Chapter 5

5

Evan

My target is late.

Right after Jolie fell asleep tonight, I received a text from my boss ordering the hit. A Greek businessman named Constantine who fucked over the wrong partner at his flashy firm. I don’t ask questions or philosophize about whether or not someone deserves to die. I don’t have any code, except for refusing to kill women and children.

I lean back against the concrete piling and exhale, anxious to be back home with my wife. With her head tucked under my chin, an arm wrapped around her waist. After the new way we made love tonight, I’m hungrier than ever for her pussy. If I was home right now, I’d be teasing her clit with my middle finger, arousing her while she’s sleeping. She’d be rolling over on top of me, half asleep and humping me, confused and disoriented to wake up wet and throbbing, whining until I took care of business.

Keeping an eye on the parking garage where my target is having a clandestine meeting with his business partner’s wife, I can’t help but replay what happened in the kitchen when I got home from “work.” I walked in with the intention of slowly unraveling her secrets, but I went a little too fast. I have to be more careful with how I respond to the information I get from her therapy sessions or she’ll get suspicious.

I look down at my automatic, long-range rifle and worry twists sharply in my chest.

She would leave me if she knew.

She would leave me.

Anxiety rears up and threatens to make me dizzy, but I breathe through my nose and find my balance. I’m starting to wonder if lying to Jolie like this was the worst move possible. She’s smart. She will eventually realize I’m leaving in the middle of the night, question where I’m going. She will eventually ask to meet co-workers and attend Christmas parties. And Jesus, she deserves better than a man who lies about his identity, his job. Spies on her. Follows her.

Listens to the private thoughts she speaks aloud.

What if I’m no better than the man who kidnapped her?

What if…she should be scared of me?

I am obsessed beyond measure. My every waking thought is about her. But if she were to find out the truth, would she understand the love is real? This connection between us cannot just be the delusions of a sick mind. She feels it, too. Before I even opened my mouth to let out a lie, we looked at each other and experienced the undercurrents. Much of my identity might be fake, but the fact that I would die for her is not.

I’m distracted when my target walks out of the building, his jacket over one arm, tie askew. He paces to his parked car, sending only a satisfied smile at the woman who emerges from the parking garage behind him. I don’t give him a chance to reach for his door handle, firing a single bullet through his temple and watching him crumple to the ground.

A female scream hangs in the air, but I pay it no attention, escaping into the shadows at the edge of the roof and melting down the back fire escape. Dropping soundlessly into the alley. I get into my car and calmly exit the alley, turning down the side street.

What…

What is the odd prick in my throat?

I don’t know why, but I’m thinking about the woman screaming.

The affectionate way the dead man looked at her before I killed him.

I take a hand off the steering wheel to rub at the spot. For some reason, I’m not feeling as detached as I usually do after a hit. Am I beginning to develop a conscience?

Troubled by that thought, I press my foot more firmly on the gas, positive I will feel better once I’m back in bed with Jolie. She cures me, makes me whole. I’m all but sweating by the time our house comes into view, throwing the car into park and spilling out into the garage. I don’t like coming home to her after a hit. I never have, but it feels worse now, because this love…it’s making me more and more human.

I make it to the bedroom and finally, finally, feel like I can take a deep breath. There she is. My wife. Nude. Covered in love marks from my mouth. Curled onto her side, hugging a pillow. Safe. Breathing. My evil deed didn’t kill the only positive thing in my life. She’s still here.

Letting out a shuddering exhale, I fall into a chair beside the bed, tilting my head to look at the lithe, sensual length of her. I should be stripping off my clothes and getting back into bed before she realizes I’ve been out, but I can’t seem to move. Can’t do anything but be arrested by the beauty of my Jolie. Daddy, she calls me. Daddy. Daddy.

Before I even know what I’m about, I’m yanking down my zipper and fucking my hand, lips peeled back in a wince, my balls so high and tight, I’m probably going to go off in seconds. I stand and walk toward the bed, looking down at the slightly parted crack of her ass and I swallow a groan, semen beading at the tip of my cock.

I’m almost busting when she stirs, humming a little in her throat and rolling over onto her back, yawning. I can’t let her see me like this, dressed in all black street clothes, touching myself while she sleeps. I can’t. So just like earlier on the roof, I step back into the shadows and watch her without breathing, hoping she’ll just drift back to sleep.

But she doesn’t.

She looks over at my side of the bed and I’m not there, her entire body stiffening with fear. “Christopher?” Her sob almost rends me in two. “It’s dark. Where are you?”

I can’t stand her fear for another moment. As fast as possible, I strip down to my boxers and attempt to even my breathing. Go from feral to normal. Normal, like she wants. Needs.

“Sorry, angel eyes,” I say, stepping into the moonlight where she can see me. Her body collapses back onto the pillows, hand to her heart. “I went to get a drink of water.”

The lie burns in my gut. I hate myself for being untruthful with this loyal, honest, courageous woman. It gets worse every time.

She’s given you a conscience.

“S-sorry,” she stammers. “I shouldn’t be freaking out. It’s silly. You should be able to walk to the kitchen at night without me having a panic attack.”

“No,” I say firmly, crossing to the bed. “Hey. There is nothing silly about you. Or what you went through. I should have been beside you. I’m sorry.”

She really has no idea how much.

I get into bed and pull her up against my chest, groaning inwardly at the pure decadence of her body molding to mine, her leg draping over my hip. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The day we met, Jolie told me she’d been kidnapped by a co-worker. I know the full story from the news and her therapy sessions, but I’ve never pushed her to elaborate for me. Probably because it felt extra deceitful, asking her for painful details I already have. Why would I want to put her through that?

Now, however, Jolie nods into my neck. “Yeah…I think I want to talk about it a little bit. Maybe the self-defense class gave me even more bravery than I realized.”

I tug her tighter against me, stroke her back. “Say whatever you want to say. I’m here.”

Her warm breath fans my throat. “Sometimes I feel guilty. About everything that happened to me.”

Above her head, my frown is ferocious. “Why would you feel guilty?”

“For not fighting harder. I was too scared, but I should have sucked it up. I should have fought and…I should have recognized earlier there was something wrong with him.”

A swallow sticks in my throat.

Heat swamps me.

There was something wrong with the man who kidnapped her.

There is something wrong with me, too. I’m…a stalker. I stalk this woman.

My wife.

Someday, she could be saying these exact words about me.

“There had to be warning signs I didn’t recognize, right?”

“I don’t know,” I choke out, my right eye twitching. “Sometimes monsters hide in plain sight.”

“Yeah…” she hedges, tracing a finger along my collarbone. “I guess so.”

“I do know you can’t blame yourself for not fighting,” I say, sincerely. “You survived. That was your job—and you succeeded.”

Sighing with gratitude, she snuggles into me. “I’m tired of talking about myself. It seems like that’s all we ever do. When we’re not…you know.” Her laugh is breathy, uneven. “I want to hear more about your childhood. College. Your parents. Your friends.”

“I told you,” I respond lightly, kissing her temple. “My parents passed away, my friends are scattered around. Seattle, Texas. Hell, I can barely keep track. Someday I’ll take you to where I grew up in Utah. We’ll make a whole trip of it.”

Lies.

More lies.

“You’ve never even shown me pictures,” she says, quietly. “Why is that?”

I force myself to stay relaxed. To stay afloat among the alarm and guilt.

Jesus, only tonight I worried about this eventuality—and here it is. She’s starting to press, starting to expect more from this man she married impulsively.

I distract her the only way I know how. The only way I know will succeed.

I take my wife’s hand and place it on my stiff cock. “I’d rather talk about why you haven’t done anything about this yet, little girl.” Next, I take frame her jaw with my hand, applying a small amount of pressure, tilting her face up to mine. “Daddy is getting impatient.”

Her breath hitches.

There is something in her eyes, a new curiosity that tells me she sees through my attempt to distract her. I’m worried she’s going to voice her concern and lean in to kiss her before that happens, but her hand strokes my dick and I end up groaning against her lips instead.

“Like this?” she asks innocently.

“Yes,” I hiss, my shaft sensitive as hell from my own rough treatment.

Another squeezing rake of that hand. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to suck it,” I pant, putting pressure on her jaw until her mouth pops open on a gasp. “Just enough to wet it. So I can get it up your tight ass.”

Jolie blinks at me in surprised excitement.

I recognize my motivation. Claiming her like this for the first time. Taking full ownership to balance out the fear of losing her. The fear that is suddenly seeming more and more real.

Desperate to regain that ground, I surge forward, pushing my wife onto her back, getting on top of her and walking on my knees along the outside of her body, until I can notch my cock into her gasping, little mouth. Sinking in a couple of pulsing inches. I almost never ask for this. I definitely don’t expect this perfect angel to suck me off, but I want her mouth around my dick right now so bad, I’m going to snap. I want to witness her attraction and be reassured she’s still with me. “Big and salty, isn’t it, little girl? It’s got no place in a virgin asshole, but that’s exactly where it’s going, so suck it sloppy. Make it slippery for your own good.”

The filth coming out of my mouth makes her moan, her fingernails dragging down my thighs so she can double fist my cock, pulling on the fat girth of it, trying to get as much of it between her lips as possible, stretching bravely to make it happen. Watching her struggle to take me into her mouth is enough to make me come, but I bite down on my tongue and stave off the rising tide.

I rest my hands on the back of my head and flex, watching her eyes go molten. She’s made no secret about loving my road-worn body and I give her a show now, rolling my hips toward her mouth, letting her enjoy my muscles chasing each other across my abdomen. I spend a lot of time killing hours in the gym when she’s safe at home and I’m supposed to be at work. It pays off now when she whimpers and lets in another inch of my shaft, her hands stroking feverishly, her tongue bathing me, lips suctioning, teeth grazing. If I let her go much longer, I’m going to finish too soon—and I need that final, untapped privilege of her body tonight.

I pull my cock from her mouth and lean down to kiss her swollen, gasping lips. “What did I tell you the first night I fucked you?” I catch her throat in a tight grip, looking her hard in the eye, love and obsession and power coursing through me. “Once you’re used to this cock, it’s going to give you nothing but pleasure. That’s what I said, isn’t it? That you’d shake every time I walk into the bedroom just knowing I’m about to put it in your tight-ass cunt?”

“Yes,” she breathes, her eyes at half mast. “I do. I shake. Please…”

“What about when I’m going to put it in your ass? Huh?” I release Jolie’s throat, flipping her over onto her stomach, separating her cheeks roughly and giving myself a look at her untouched entrance. “Maybe you’ll just find something to bite down on.”

Her fingers curl into the pillow. “I want this,” she says huskily. “I want to feel you there.”

A groan rumbles in my chest. “Is it any wonder Daddy can’t stay away?” I spit on her puckered hole and push forward with my hips, wedging my cock between her cheeks and riding, riding, thrusting against the promised land I’m about to claim as mine. “I’m probably going to get three or four inches in and bust, baby, you’re so fucking sweet.”

My addiction lies in getting this girl off, however, so I reach for the bedside table, taking out two things. A butterfly massager she’s had since I met her but hasn’t used since. And a small bottle of lubricant—which she also hasn’t needed. I turn on the massager and slide it under her hip, moving inward until I can press it tightly to the juncture of her thighs.

Jolie’s whole body shudders, her hips dropping to grind into the vibrator. “Oh!”

“Fuck it for Daddy,” I rasp against her ear. “Fuck it while I defile you.”

Jolie sobs, her thighs jerking a little wider, giving me more access to where I need to go. I take it with a growl, using my knees to push hers open even more. If she could see my face right now, she’d be scared to death. I’m fully her stalker in this moment. I’m the wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m the man who steals hair from her hairbrush and licks the rim of her coffee mug before it goes in the dishwasher. I’m an obsessed felon who assaults men that try and speak to her. I am fucking insane. And I’m working two fingers in and out of her fuck-tight ass. A dream come true. A fantasy come to life. She has no idea the battle I fight not to hold her down, get inside of her, and roar myself hoarse about everything that makes her irresistible. Addicting.

Mine.

I spit again onto her entrance, then replace my fingers with the thick head of my dick, inching inside with a low, jagged sound of a man overcome. A man on the verge of imploding. Or going insane. Or both.

“Let’s see how deep I can get it,” I growl into her neck, working my flesh through the damp, stretching resistance. “Let’s see what a good little girl you are.”

The mounds of her ass are so soft against my belly, her back is such a sweet curve, bisected by the feminine ridge of her spine. Her cheek is pressed to the pillow, so I can see her open mouth, the shallow breath coming in and out. The black fan of her eyelashes. She’s a revelation. A goddess walking the earth. And so tight. So motherfucking tight around my dick that I’m making hoarse panting sounds, a bead of sweat rolling down my temple. “Daddy,” she whispers when I sink in another inch. “I’m all yours.”

I choke out her name and a shudder wracks me. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

My orgasm seems to spear up from a deep, untapped part of me and I’m already overflowing her little asshole, barking curses as white streams roll down the slopes of her buttocks, filling the parted valley in between, sloshing up onto my belly, because at some point I started thrusting and she started encouraging me with yes, yes, yes, and I wrap around a hand around the slapping headboard and fuck into her clenching hole, releasing everything inside of me. Every drop she inspired.

“Mine, goddammit. Mine forever.”

“Yours.”

I fall on her, shaking violently, and without the use of my usual shield, I gather her up like she might disappear and wrap my body around her, as if we’re under attack. I rub my open mouth across her forehead, up into her hair, holding her so tight she’s gasping for air. I’m supposed to display more control than this, but the dread inside me won’t allow for caution.

“Don’t you ever leave me,” I rasp into her ear. “Don’t you dare.”

“I won’t.” Our kisses are quick, frantic, everywhere. “I won’t.”

Momentarily, I’m reassured.

But in the back of my head, there is a voice saying we’ll see.

We’ll see about that.