Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(8)

“I—I can’t,” she says between jagged breaths. “Please. Those pictures…I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

I don’t think she’s noticed, but I’m not really listening.

I bend my head to blow along the seam between blade and breast. Leo arches at the feel of it, and pulls tight as she can on me—her stomach muscles ripple with the effort.

“Nice try.” I smile up at her through my sweat-damp hair. “Now hold still.”

No use. She wriggles, trying to f*ck up on to me. Shocks of pleasure knot around my cock, squeezing and shuddering, and at once I’m torn between losing myself inside her, or shifting the scalpel just a little to the left so I can tear something else and lose blood, beautiful blood.

“Fuck me,” she murmurs. “Just f*ck me. Like that, but harder…like…” Her thighs fall open wide, so wide. “Deeper. Y—yeah.”

No.

“Sweetheart, I only want one little thing.” I bring a hand up to stroke the hair from her face, where I catch her wild, wide eyes with mine. “Look at me. I’m not him.”

“I know,” she whispers, though there’s a flicker of doubt there somewhere, a brief dip to her brow.

“I always take care of you, don’t I?”

“You do. I know that.”

“So where’s my good girl, huh? Where is she?”

“I just can’t,” she whimpers, trying to look away. I find myself hoping she’ll cry. Nothing like a tear to catch the smallest shred of light. “I don’t…I keep asking myself, why did they let him do that? Did they know?”

I told you so. She burns in the vague lines of symmetry between her lover and a ritualistic killer; panic tugs at her nerves. Leo is not stupid. She prides herself on her intellect—I’m more downfall than she ever wanted, and all this is a reminder too raw.

“Did they?” she repeats, desperate.

With a sigh, I pull the blade from her breast and set it back on the bedside table. Then I slide my arms beneath her, draw her up. Press her heartbeat over mine so that they mesh, we pulse together and she calms. Then slowly, slowly I move inside her, cupping her jaw while I hold her still.

“Maybe they loved him,” I whisper. I am dangerously close to the bone here, but some wounds need cauterizing before they begin to fester.

“We aren’t like them,” she shoots back.

“Maybe they loved him.”

“Stop it.”

Despite her panic, she grows slicker. Hotter. For a second, I swear she forgets everything but the friction between us, the shove and glide of my cock. If there wasn’t a canvas at stake, I could be tempted to forget too, but if that slips away, then what? The thought sets my teeth on edge.

We’re panting now, a mess of breath. She lets her eyes fall closed, bites her bottom lip, and drags sharp nails across my shoulders.

“That’s why you let me do these things,” I murmur. “Because of the way I make you feel.”

Those black button eyes roll open to watch me. Their pupils grow glassy and fat.

“That’s why you let me see you on the inside, isn’t it, baby?”

Leo begins to moan—soft, reluctant little sounds. So pained to want the things she shouldn’t, even now.

“I love that you let me,” I tell her, my voice gruff with pleasure. God, she’s wet. “Remember how I pushed you? How tight you got when you told me no, how f*cking sweet that was…?”

She gets louder. Begins to yelp. It feels like every muscle in her body pulls rigid beneath me; sweat glues us together at the hips and then each thrust rips us apart. We’re inflamed there, blood exploding beneath the surface of our skins in scarlet clouds, and each tiny apocalypse heats and throbs and aches. There’s no coming down from this mountain…not without a motherf*cker of a fall. And Leo is not the only one teetering on the edge of a dark, dark precipice.

I falter.

I burn.

“Leo,” I manage, my voice wrought, “don’t deny yourself the things you want. Not when I…I’m the only one who can give them to you. Why would you waste that?”

Faster, now. She writhes and wriggles until I catch the right spots.

“Baby, slow down before I—”

In a second, she grabs my hand, drags it down to her damp, swollen breast. Presses. Shoves flesh between my thumb and index finger, wills me to pinch. When I squeeze down, she lets out a hoarse sob that sends blood rushing straight to my already-solid cock. It’s like there’s no room for more, no place to go but further inside her, down and down until she cries out—I know it hurts. Then there’s nothing but the urge to stuff myself into her, to leave something—anything—behind. Fuck. She’s not cut tonight, but we bleed into each other anyway amid the force of our orgasms, each shudder a wound that gushes before it heals. I don’t even notice how much my stitched-up insides smart until we’re coming down together, all sticky and sighing.

Leo reaches up to stroke sodden hair from my brow. Her eyes narrow; she gulps. “I hurt you.”

I hurt her too, but then that’s what she wanted. What she always wants.

I nudge her hand away. “It was worth it.”

“Aeron, I’m sorry.”

“Shh.” I bump my nose to hers, and run my fingers down to trace the smudged shape of her freshly bruised breast. So pretty. “I don’t need to hear it.”