Chapter 16
Hazel
Irouse next to Pierce. The world should be dimmer, considering what I'd done last night, but it's not. It's more vibrant. The sun is out, and it's shining through the small window over the fold-out mattress on the couch. Pierce's arm is over me. My face is on his chest. His scent permeates my senses, and I close my eyes and let it go even deeper. The knowledge David had been drugging and molesting me for far longer than I knew had thrown me into a complete tailspin. One that had ended in murder.
I think of Sam, my littlest sister who I left in the house with him when I moved. Who I left alone with him when I vowed to never return after last Christmas. I make a mental note that I need to check on her.
Pierce jerks awake, taking me in before fear grows further away in his eyes. "Are you alright?" he asks. "You were asleep when I got back."
When he got back from burying the man I killed.
I'll never get used to saying that. However, I don't regret it. If he was doing it to me, he was doing it to someone else. He deserved what he'd gotten, and I can't make myself feel guilty for standing up for myself and protecting who would've come after me.
"I'm alright," I tell him, smiling when his sheepish grin shifts to something sinful. He turns on his side, sliding his arm out from under me.
"Are you? The first kill is always the hardest. Well, they're all hard."
I swallow.
The first kill.
As if he expects me to do it again.
The knowledge he's killed more than one person doesn't cause me to flinch a muscle or bat an eyelash. Something inside me tells me he's only done it for the same reasons. Because the person didn't need to wander this earth any longer.
Even if he has a dark side, he's a good man. I can feel it in my soul.
"I'm fine. It'll maybe hit me later. But right now, I'm good. What did you do with..." I trail off.
"The body? You don't need to worry about that. I took care of it, little ember."
I bite my lip, and his eyes zone in on my mouth.
"Thank you. For last night. And for bringing me back. I don't know that I could've broken out of it without you," I admit. That's the part I hate to admit. That I'd have kept going if he wouldn't have stopped me. His hands had brought me back to reality.
"I hadn't meant for you to...dispatch him," he says, sitting up and letting his back lean against the couch cushions behind our pillows.
"You were going to..."
He nods, and I lick my lips. Sitting up, I face him, legs tucked into my chest, arms wrapped around them.
"You'd have spilled more blood for me?" I ask.
He nods without hesitation. "The longer I'm around you, the more I know you, I think I'd turn this world to nothing but red for you, Hazel."
A shaky breath expels from me as his words root around inside my brain.
That kind of devotion. That kind of loyalty. It's the stuff of stories.
For only a moment, I let myself spiral over how this monumental event will alter my writing. I've always dealt with my demons through the written word. Now that my demon is slain, will writing still come as naturally? Will I still find it therapeutic? Or will it become a chore?
"Does that bother you?" he asks, bringing me back from the brink of panic.
I shake my head absently as I look deeply into his blue eyes. "No, it doesn't. It makes me..." I bite my lip.
He makes a guttural noise deep in his chest, leaning forward and reaching for me. "Come."
I let him tug me over his lap.
"What does it make you?" His voice has the gravel of sleep still lingering in it, and it makes a warm tingle travel my spine.
"It makes me want you even more. That you would kill to protect me, Pierce… it makes me feel safer than I ever have in my life."
He reaches up and cups my face, and my eyes flutter closed. "You'll always be safe with me. As long as you're mine, you have nothing more to fear in this world."
My stomach cinches with palpitating excitement. "Am I yours, stalker?"
He smirks at my pet name for him. "That's up to you, little ember." He shoots my nickname right back at me, and my body vibrates with waves of heat.
I think about the insanity of my situation momentarily. This man had stalked me through the walls of his family home, watched me plagued by my past, and vowed to fix it. And now he has. It's sick and twisted in all the dark and delicious ways he could've been. And I can't force myself to feel an ounce of remorse.
The world is better off without David in it.
And my world is better off with Pierce in it.
"I think I am," I answer.
His hands fist my sides, squeezing forcibly. "Try that again, little ember," he grumbles.
I smirk, leaning forward. Letting my lips touch his, I say, "I'm yours, stalker."
"Mmm, that's more like it." He nips my lower lip, and I moan. My mind flicks back in time to the moment in the kitchen. How I felt in his arms. How it felt to be his.
Greedily, I press forward, kissing him with an eagerness he hadn't been expecting. He pulls back, taking me in.
He's still worried about me and the fact that he is only grows my feelings for him.
When he's satisfied with what he sees, he plunges ahead. His mouth is on my lips, hot and heavy, tongue slithering across mine and making my nipples harden for him. A whimper escapes, and he swallows it down.
When he squeezes my hips again, I grind across him. His erection is hard and massive, ready to rip me to bits. But I know that afterward, he'll be there to put those bits back together.
He snarls and pulls back, resting his back against the couch again as he looks his fill.
"This greedy pussy is very riled up this morning," he concludes, letting one hand slip over my hip and under my bedclothes. Finding me wet when he skims two fingers through my swollen lips, he rolls his eyes.
"It is," I breathe.
"I want to break this fucking body in as many ways as I can, little ember. I'm not a good man. I've never pretended to be. But with you..."
"Break me, Pierce. Then glue me back together. Over and over and over again. Because nothing has ever felt as right as you do. No one has ever cared about me like you do. We're bonded by blood, bound by death itself."
He cups each side of my face gingerly with his hands. Callouses feel gruff against my skin, reminding me the word they've seen. "You, little ember, were worth the wait."
The world fades away as his kiss greets my lips once more, but this time, it's soft and seductive. Heartbreakingly deep as he pours himself into me without holding back.
When his tongue glides against mine this time, it's all I can do not to sink my teeth into it, alleviating some of the static charge that's traveling through my body. I'm giddy. Ready for him to be inside me.
I haven't had a man since that horrifying night David forced himself inside me, and I'm glad Pierce is going to be the man I choose to replace his touch.
Because David is nothing now.
Nothing but the bond between my stalker and me.
"Hazel, fuck," Pierce groans, lifting me in a flash and turning us. My back hits the couch-bed's springs, and squeaks resound through the attic.
We both fight to get our clothes off, and when I'm beneath him and bare, he lets his eyes wander the planes of my body like a man who's just found water in the desert.
He's on his knees. My legs rest on the outside of his thighs. It's exposing to be this open to him, but sexy at the same time.
When he reaches down and skates his fingers through my wetness, I arch into his touch, begging for more.
"You're more beautiful than I could imagine through that godforsaken shower curtain," he says.
I moan, and fists his cock, sliding his hand over it once. Twice. And then he slinks the head of it between my folds.
"Oh, fuck!"
He smirks wickedly, and in his eyes, both sides of him are present. The one that would take on the world for me. The one that knows I'll need to be held afterward. "You like that, don't you? The idea I was watching you finger your pussy. That I had my face pressed so tightly to that fucking wall, I could've lost an eye with one wrong move."
A brazen thought pops into my head, and I bite my lip. But I'm different now. I'm becoming someone confident about him. Someone who has nothing more to fear. Because of him. "Did you come with me?" I ask.
He stops torturing me with the head of his dick long enough to meet my eyes. "What kind of gentleman would I be if I came with you? No, I came after you," he tells me, and then he slides home with no pomp or circumstance.
His words mixed with the sudden intrusion of his cock spearing through me, throws me into a delirium so sweet I know I'll want to visit it over and over.
"Pierce!" I lift to wrap my arms around him. I want him closer. I need him closer.
"Ah, ah, ah, you're mine to break, little ember. Remember?"
His hand wraps around my throat, pressing me back down to the mattress. I'd been so worried about someone being in the house. So afraid of my stalker. And now, I'm pinned beneath him, pelvis lifting and meeting him stroke for fucking stroke because I can't get enough.
My soul is levitating as my center flutters with an oncoming orgasm.
"Is this alright?" he asks through gritted teeth, the smallest semblance of the gentle side of Pierce dashing through his eyes.
I nod. "Harder. Fuck me harder," I strain.
Darkness veils his eyes as he adds a second hand over my throat. My hands find his, needing an anchor point. He widens on his knees, giving him the leverage he needs to fuck me just how I need.
Hard. Deep. Fast.
My mouth is gaping open, and my body is nearly there.
My lungs are on fire, burning with the need for air.
"You need air?" he asks, his own impending release making his face contort. He's trying to be the man who comes after me, but it's a chore.
I nod. A frantic panic sets into my chest.
"Then come. You breathe after you come for me like a good little whore."
He rolls his hips just right, adding friction to my clit, and I break into shattered bits. Broken by my winter watcher.
"Fuck, Hazel. I'm going to fill this greedy pussy. Are you ready?" he asks.
He's let up on the pressure against my throat. I can breathe, but I miss the commanding feeling of him holding my life in his hands.
One thrust forward steals my breath as his hot cum fills my fluttering insides, washing away the last of the past. It's dead and buried by the man who couldn't get enough of me. The man who gave me revenge, and then held me like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever witnessed.
Both our breathing is still wild, and my chest is still burning slightly. Pierce drops on his elbows over the top of me, kissing me with a dark passion I never thought I'd know in my life.
He's the dark story I'll never write. Instead, I'll live it.