40. Hannah

Hannah

Tap tap tap . . .

“Mama, why does he look like that?”

“Hush, now, Missy dear.” My mother silences her, tugging Missy and my hands down the long, narrow passage toward the casket up front. People stare at us as we pass, their gazes trained on us like we’re circus performers.

Papa took us to a circus once. There were clowns and I didn’t like them. I liked the animals, though. Missy loved the clowns and declared she would also be a clown when we grow up.

I just think she said it to scare me.

I don’t think we’ll be going to a circus again. Mama doesn’t like it and now, Papa’s not here anymore.

Tap tap tap . . .

What is that annoying tapping? It feels like something hitting my face, but when I reach up, there’s no one there.

We were told before we left the house that we must be silent today, or Mama would be angry. I don’t like when she’s angry, so I’ve kept my voice locked tight.

“Why is he smiling?” Missy asks as we near and my fingers grow clammy in Mama’s grip. I want to tug away from her, but I know if I do, she’ll be angry. Still . . . panic rises in my throat and I feel like it’s too close.

I don’t want to see him.

That’s not him. That man in the casket holds a slight green tinge to his skin. A sunken decay around his eyes.

He wasn’t green. He was big and powerful. Dark and dangerous. Bad, but willing to be good, just for me.

Gently, I tug on my hand, but Mama won’t let go.

She only tightens her grip, pulling me closer and closer to the corpse in the casket.

My breath catches in my throat and I feel like I can smell death. Taste it on my tongue.

“Mama,” I choke, but she just pulls harder and I stumble forward when she stops abruptly, right at the edge of the casket. I fall forward, catching myself on the edge and my hand brushes his.

Disgust fills me as bile rises in my throat.

I touched him and Mama told me not to touch him.

Tap tap tap . . .

I scurry back, my head woozy as the blood rushes to my ears, but Mama’s face is all I can see, her eyes twinged with disappointment.

Tap tap tap.

Not a single ounce of sorrow rests in that gaze.

Tap.

“See what happens when you don’t listen?” Mama nods to the casket, lips pursed.

I follow her gaze, a scream of terror freezing in my throat.

That’s not Papa at all.

It’s Mason.

His face is twisted in a hellish grimace, mirroring a smile. His eyes wide open, stormy gray, and glassy. But it’s the hole in the center of his forehead that fills my veins with ice.

My chest tightens painfully, as the room begins to sway around me, the faces of the crowd distorted and demonic. I suck air into my lungs, but it’s not enough and my heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest.

That’s not Mason.

Tap tap tap tap tap tap.

“Mama?” I think I ask, but before I can focus on her reply, everything goes dark.

Tap.

What the fuck is tapping on my face?

My eyes will barely open, but I can see it’s still dark.

Where am I?

Tap tap tap.

“Hannah . . .” Someone whispers from above me.

Mason. I’m in Mason’s room. I can feel him beside me, but . . . why can’t I feel my legs?

Tap tap tap.

I open my mouth to tell whoever is touching me to stop, but no sound comes out, save for a choking gurgle when the saliva in my mouth pools from the nausea in my stomach.

“Look at me.”

That’s not Mason’s voice.

That’s Melissa.

I force my eyes to crack open with everything I have in me.

And my heart stops.

Melissa sits above me, shadowed in the moonlight, a knife raised above her head.

But . . . it’s the smile on her face that’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

It’s the smile.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

She pats my cheek, but I can’t feel her fingertips. I can’t feel anything, save for the heavy weight on my chest like a steel anvil, resting right on top of my ribcage.

“Look at me, look at me, look at me . . .” she whispers, so fast I can barely make out the words. I suck air into my lungs, but none comes.

Panic seizes my chest and tears leak out of the corners of my eyes, but still . . . I can’t move.

“Look at me, look at me, look at me.”

Why can’t I wake Mason?

This must be another nightmare.

I will myself to wake up, fighting with my subconscious for control of my own body. All the while, that wretched smile stays in place.

His smile.

“Hannah.”

I scream, all the air rushing back into my body at once and leap from the bed, tangling myself in sheets and blankets before crashing to the floor against the bedroom door.

She’s going to kill him.

Mason.

“Hannah,” Mason says, jumping from the bed and falling to his knees in front of me. “What the fuck happened?”

He brushes the hair out of my face, too gentle for the nightmares still clinging to the edges of my mind with steel, icy cold grips.

“There’s someone in here,” I gasp, hand over my chest because I’m still raggedly out of breath. I scan the room around us, even as he takes my face in his hands and attempts to force my gaze to his.

“Baby, there’s no one here. It’s just us.”

He thinks I’m crazy.

“She was,” I cry, shoving back from him and falling forward to search under the bed.

Nothing.

Not even a sock.

“Hannah.”

I clamber to my feet, searching the closet, the bathroom, the cabinet under the sink, the shower . . . anywhere I can think that someone my size could hide.

“Hannah.” Mason’s voice is like a whip cracking when I reach for the door handle to check the rest of the house.

Tap tap, fucking tap.

It makes sense now.

The tapping on the other side of my dark prison.

It was Missy. She was the monster in the darkness.

With shaky legs, I sink to the floor at the bottom of the bed and pull my knees to my chest.

Then I cry.

Am I going fucking crazy?

I look away. I can’t . . . be seen by him right now. Not when the world is falling apart in my mind and that awful night is burned into my brain.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper and he growls, tugging me to his chest.

So, I cry harder.

Surprisingly, he lets me, sitting on the rug and tugging me into his lap while I blubber like a baby all over him.

And finally . . . everything makes sense. Everything I’ve blocked out. Everything I’ve tried to hide from myself for all those years.

It was me. My fault.

We don’t move for a long time. Not even when my back starts to hurt and I’m sure his does, too. When the tears stop, he holds me in silence and I listen to the steady beat of his heart under my ear.

This thing between us has far surpassed anything I ever thought it would. Meeting his family, my promise to stay, his profession of adoration only days ago . . .

I don’t deserve any of this.

“I murdered my father.”

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. If I wasn’t listening to his heart beating against my ear, I would be sure he’d died.

Finally, when I can’t take his silence anymore, I lift my head to meet his gaze.

It’s volatile.

“Is that supposed to deter me, little doe?”

My mind struggles to catch up when his fingers tighten on my hips. What is he talking about? I just told him I murdered my own father and he acts like I just told him I have a secret crush on the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

“My mother gave me the poison. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t ask either when she told me to mix it into his dinner.” I suck in a shaky breath. “He died because he was planning to leave my mother. He was in love with a woman at his work and he was going to take us away from Mom. He knew what kind of person she was and he always tried to protect us from her. He was a good dad.”

Mason looks as unbothered by what I’ve just confessed to him as he would reading the Sunday paper.

“And now he haunts your nightmares.”

“And Melissa. And Mom. Mason . . .” I suck in a heavy breath, tugging my hands away from him.

This is not the response I thought I would get.

“I just told you I murdered my own father and you have nothing to say?”

I move to stand. I need to pace. But . . . he doesn’t let me, grabbing my hand and pulling me closer so my front is pressed against his instead. His hand cups my ass while his other the back of my head, like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him.

“I know, Hannah.”

My mind threatens to explode.

There’s no fucking way.

“How?” I know I sound like I’m accusing him of something, but dammit. My heart feels like it weighs a thousand pounds in my chest.

“Because you’re mine,” he shrugs, brushing a tear from under my eye. “Because of how he disappeared and the guilt you still carry. Because your mother’s never been innocent. And because she’s vindictive and cruel when scorned and evil enough to use a child to do her bidding.”

Holy shit.

“How long have you known?”

His jaw ticks and he looks away for a split second before those hurricane eyes turn back to mine. “Since Prince’s men found his body buried in a shallow grave not too far from your Virginia home.”

I want to be angry. I want to fight with him. Ask him how he could keep this from me, but it’s my secret, isn’t it? I’ve kept it from him for just as long. I did it. So who’s really at fault here?

His arms tighten around me. As if at any moment, someone might snatch me away from him.

Sometimes, it feels like it.

Still . . . even as I soak in the warmth radiating through his skin, I know . . . This has to end.

My mother killed my father. My sister is dead. The cartel is after Mason and I’m bringing all this right to his doorstep with a promise of love.

They had him in their crosshairs. They were prepared to shoot him.

“I need to leave, Mason.”

Mason stills beneath me, tension radiating through every tattooed muscle. A beat passes before he drawls, “Want to run that by me again, little doe?”

This is going to hurt.

My mother only wants him because of me. The cartel only wants him because of me.

“It’s not safe for you to be around me,” I murmur quietly, keeping my gaze pinned to the nightlight emanating from the bathroom. I swallow the lump forming in my throat, but my voice still comes out shaky and pathetic. “I need to go.”

Carefully, I disentangle myself from him and stand on shaky legs. He doesn’t stop me when I step from his bedroom into mine. I don’t even know why I came in here, I just needed to walk away from the volatile stare searing a hole into my back.

Unfortunately, it follows me.

“You think that’s going to solve all your problems? Sacrificing yourself?” I can feel the rage in his voice, seeping into me like toxic waste.

“It’s not safe for you, Mason,” I snap, whipping around to face him. Big mistake, because if I thought a hurricane was bad, I don’t even know what to call this. His eyes have never suited him better. “You have to see that.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“You could have been killed today, Mason. You were shot!”

He chuckles darkly, the sound sending a shiver through me. He cocks a brow, a dangerous darkness seeping off him in waves.

“This is getting real fucking old, Hannah.”

Something in my chest cracks and tears well in my eyes, but I force them back. “I’m not running,” I seethe. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“You’re running alright. Right into fucking death.”

“Then that’s my choice.”

“That’s it, then. Your grand plan? Fucking leave and expect me to sit here and lose you?”

“You have to.” A tear slips down my cheek and he watches its descent with an icy darkness. “I can’t . . . I can’t let anything bad happen to you because of me.”

“You walk out that door, Hannah, you’re doing it with me. I won’t allow you to offer yourself up for sacrifice.”

I can feel that he means it by the possession in his gaze. The protectiveness in his hands. Call it whatever you want. Toxic. Loyal. I don’t care. For once, it feels good to finally meet another person who feels as deeply as I do. Who would be willing to risk their life to save mine, just like I would to save theirs.

I crave to be a part of his life and that’s dangerous. He could decide at any moment he doesn’t want me here. That the words he says in the darkness of my nightmares are just empty promises. But . . . I accept it. I want to fall into Mason Carpenter, even if it means trusting him completely.

“I’m in love with you,” I whisper and the dam breaks. Everything in me crashes around us like an earthquake ripped through the center of the room, as the tears can’t be held back anymore.

Mason doesn’t say anything, but he stiffens, his spine rigid and his nostrils flaring.

“I’m in love with you,” I repeat, “and love means making sacrifices, even if you don’t feel the same way.”

He stares at me, hate in his gaze that burns every vein in my body.

I guess he doesn’t feel the same way.

I shake my head, closing my eyes against the tears. I can’t look at him right now. If I do, it’ll only make this harder. I move to step around him, toward my bedroom, but before I can, his hand shoots out, grabbing me around the throat and spinning me until my front is against the wall.

“Do you think,” he snarls in my ear as shock paralyzes me to my core, “that you can just give me that and rip it away in heartbeat?”

He presses into me, then his hand winds through my hair and he tugs my head back until I’m looking at him straight above me, my gaze filled with only his volatile eyes.

He chuckles darkly when a whimper leaves my throat, his other hand pressing against my stomach to bring my ass back into him. Reaching between us, he rips my shorts down my legs until my ass is exposed, his fingers kneading the flesh roughly.

I clench my teeth, my pride flaring in my chest even as I succumb to him.

“It’s for the best.” His hand connects with my ass and I gasp at the sting radiating from my skin. Heat envelopes me from the warmth radiating where my core presses into the ridge of his boxers and I resist the urge to move back against him.

“What’s your word?” he grits, repeating the motion on the other side until I’m sure there’s going to be a welt later.

“Hurricane,” I breathe through the tightness in my throat.

“You want me to stop,” he murmurs against my ear. “Use it.”

I nod, a fever taking over when he smacks my ass again. I arch into his palm, begging for him to touch me, even if his touch is rough.

This is what Mason does. He chases away the demons until he’s the only darkness left.

Flipping me around without a word, Mason slips my shirt off, only pulling back long enough to get it over my head before he tugs me back flush with his chest. The cool air hits my skin, but the shudder that moves through me is entirely from the way he nips at my ear, my jaw, and then dipping lower to cup my breast to his mouth.

Expertly, his tongue strokes over the hardened nub and my head falls back against the wall hard enough that I wonder if there will be a dent there tomorrow.

He groans against my skin, his fingers finding my aching pussy before he slips two inside. I gasp from the burn, my fingernails digging into the flesh of his shoulders until I’m on the verge of breaking skin.

“Scratch me, fight me, fuck me,” he grits, releasing my nipple with a stroke of his teeth. All the while, his fingers move in and out of me fast enough that I can feel myself opening up for him, begging for more. Just as my orgasm crests and my whimpers turn to deep moans, he stops, tugging out of me. “Your choice.”

Abruptly, Mason lifts me into his arms and then drops to his knees. My ass rests on his thighs and I reach between us to work his cock out of his pants before he drops me down to my back on the rug underneath us.

He wastes no time slipping his boxers down his legs and his cock springs free, his thickness straining and angry red from his erection. My mouth waters and I reach for him, but he catches my wrist, pinning it above my head.

“I’m going to enjoy punishing you, little doe.”

And then he’s filling me. He only manages a few inches before my body pushes him back out, the sting from his size emanating through me and bringing a cry from my lips. The burn as he thrusts back inside, filling me until I can feel him in my stomach drives me to roll my hips into his, my body tightening around him.

He takes my other hand when I try to tug his lips down to mine, denying me a kiss and holding both to the floor above my head. His other comes down to hold my hip in place while he starts a dizzying pace.

“Mason,” I groan, perspiration coating every inch of my skin as I work to keep up with him.

This is Mason truly unhinged. Giving me all of him without holding anything back. It’s fucking addicting.

“You want my kiss after you just said you were going to leave?”

“Yes,” I pant, my back arching off the floor as the pleasure radiating through me draws to a sharp point again.

“No.”

Tears collect in my eyes at his denying me, but he doesn’t stop the thrust of his hips against mine.

“ Fuck ,” he grits, using my hips to slam me down on his impossible length.

My nails dig into his wrist where he’s holding me, marking his skin as he has mine. I roll against his groin, my body trembling. It’s too much and I can’t be quiet as a strangled moan slips free.

“How bad do you want me, Hannah?” he growls, tugging me forward and flipping me over onto my stomach. “How much do you love me?”

“More than anything,” I breathe, my nipples straining against the carpet beneath me. Can’t wait to see that rug burn.

Still, he denies me again, pulling out and leaving my pussy pulsating as the orgasm fades away. He flips me over and I fall forward, my cheek pressing into the carpet beneath me.

“I hate you,” I seethe, my head falling back to hit the floor behind me.

“You take my cock so fucking well, Hannah. Even when you’re pissed at me,” he rasps, his fingers strumming over my clit until I feel like I’m going to explode. My nipples tighten, my pussy sucking him in greedily, even as my temper flares. “Your love or your hatred; I can’t decide which is sweeter.”

“I’m not a whore,” I whisper, tears streaming down my cheeks from the onslaught of pleasure careening through me.

“No,” he bites, his hips against my ass filling the room with rough sounds of sex and flesh on flesh. “But you’re my whore. You want me to stop?”

I should say yes. My head tells me to, but my body couldn’t disagree more. It wants his hatred as much as it wants his love.

“No,” I breathe, moaning when he reaches around and slips his fingers over my clit again.

Leaning down until his front is pressed entirely to my back, he wraps his arms around my chest, his hand at my throat, squeezing.

“You were fucking made for me and only me, little doe,” he grits, his thrust pushing me across the carpet with each stroke of his cock against that delicious part of me.

My heart swells and threatens to explode when he presses a gentle kiss—a stark contrast to what he’s doing to me—to my ear lobe.

“Even if you ran,” he rasps against my ear. “I’d still be there, protecting you from the shadows.”

“Sounds like obsession,” I pant, my voice strained with the force of his fingers on my windpipe.

“Sounds like you’re mine.”

“Please don’t stop, Mason,” I whimper, tears building in the corners of my eyes from the onslaught of pleasure. This orgasm is going to break me, but I’d gladly welcome it if it branded him on my skin for the rest of my short life.

“Come, Hannah.”

My body erupts when he strokes over that perfect spot inside me, and blinding, white-hot light shoots behind my eyes. I cry out, euphoria consuming me until I’m lost in the haze, the only beacon back to earth being him as he rears back, takes my hips in his hands, and hikes me to my knees.

He presses my shoulders down into the carpet and holds my legs up because they shake with the orgasm still rippling through me. Then he slides back in.

“Oh, God,” I whimper, my sex still pulsing with aftershocks.

“That’s it, Hannah,” he growls over me, his voice at the back of my neck terrifying as he continues to thrust into me. “Pray for my damned soul. It’s always been yours.” He presses his thumb to my lips, pushing it inside forcefully. “Suck.”

I draw him in at the rough command and lathe him with my tongue. When he withdraws, I let him feel my teeth.

Our safe word isn’t just for me.

He hisses out a sharp breath, swatting at my ass before pressing that same thumb to the tight ring of muscles above where his cock is slipping inside me until it gives way, allowing him to enter me.

My body tightens to a breaking point where I think my heart’s either going to beat out of my chest or I’m going to come again. His hand on my shoulder slips to fist in my hair. He tugs my head back and with a rough noise, nips the side of my neck.

It’s maddening. Deranged. Us.

“You own me, little doe,” he grunts, enunciating each word with a thrust of his hips. “No matter where the fuck I am or who I’ve been with, it’s always been you I see.”

I whimper, my knees shaking. I can feel my arousal slipping down my thighs and I would be embarrassed, was I not careening toward another orgasm.

His fingers tighten in my hair, bringing my head back at an angle I’m sure will break my spine until I meet his gaze.

“I love you, Hannah. Now come for me.”

My body tightens, exploding and tears stream down my face to mix with the sweat on my cheeks. Heat rushes through me, burning me to a crisp when Mason releases my hair and thrusts into me only once more before growling out my name like a prayer to God.

He fills me, coming with a sharp thrust of his hips and a shuddering breath that has him collapsing overtop of me.

When he rests his head on the center of my back, my knees really do give out and he lays down with me, the only sound the racing of our hearts and our heavy breathing.

Still . . . the little voice in the back of my head doesn’t shut up.

“Did you mean that?” I pant, chancing a look over my shoulder in his direction to find him watching me.

His steely gaze holds me for a moment, then he rolls me until I’m on my back and he’s hovering over me. Somehow, this is more terrifying than anything else I’ve faced in the last twenty-four hours.

“I’m so fucking in love with you it hurts, Hannah Marie. And I’ll fight like hell to keep you.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. No easy feat because it feels like it’s the size of a softball.

“And the other. Did you mean that, too?”

He leans down, nipping my bottom lip and soothing the sting with a stroke of his tongue. Finally, he kisses me and it’s the kiss of death because it feels like he’s sucking my soul out with each stroke of his tongue against mine.

Finally, when he pulls away, his voice is husky.

“Every. Fucking. Word.”

“You’re bleeding again,” I whisper, my fingers running over the red mark in the bandage on his arm.

“And I’ll bleed a thousand times more for you, little doe.” Reaching up, he wipes the tears from under my eyes with the back of his thumb. “But don’t you dare ever ask me to give you up.”