Page 55 of Hounded

“Would you have me beg?” He closed the gap to press against me, brushing my hair back and holding it while he cradled my head. “I need to be satisfied, darling,” he said. “Lie with me. I want to be with you.”

Whatever resistance remained crumbled because I wanted to be with him, too. I craved the closeness only he could provide. I’d forsaken all others years ago and remained committed to a man who had never fully committed to me.

He led me to my room, and we undressed. He kissed me, trying to stoke the coals of passion that smoldered low. But the flame never caught, and I felt cold, resigned and bracing against him while he used my body.

After we were done, I lay in my bed, watching the flame of the side table oil lamp dance and waver. Across the room, Jonathan tugged on his boots.

“Saturday is Edith’s birthday,” he said over his shoulder. “She’s five this year. Bea has a grand party planned, and it promises to be quite the event.” He straightened with both feet planted and his shirt and pants buttoned. “You’ll be there, won’t you?” He flashed the smile I’d once found so winsome. “Say you’ll come.”

My mouth was dry, and my response came out as a croak. “Of course.”

Jonathan nodded approval. “She adores you, you know.” He returned to the bedside while tugging on his shirt sleeve cuffs. Bending over where I lay, he kissed my sore cheek and whispered, “As do I.”

With a final caress of my hair, he stood, then made his way toward the door. He paused in the open frame and glanced back. “Saturday, then?”

I nodded.

When I heard the apartment door close and lock behind him, I rolled face down into the pillows and wept.

20

Loren

Half a bottle ofsoap wasn’t enough to make me feel clean. I’d been in the shower long enough that my fingers were pruned, and my skin stung from the water that clouded the air with steam.

If not for the fluttering plastic curtain threatening to expose me to any passerby, I would have laid down on top of the moldy floor drain. Exhaustion had taken root in my core, and it pulled me toward an increasingly inevitable collapse.

I was no stranger to Moira’s bedroom, but she hadn’t called on me in months. I’d become spoiled by her disinterest but, last night, I was her sole focus. In the past, she marked my flesh with her teeth and claws, drawing blood she licked off then kissed to my lips. She took pleasure from me and gave none back. It was strange to realize that I preferred those impersonal encounters to the tender touches and careful attention that turned my body against me.

I’d been lonely without Indy. Sleepless and spending too much time thinking of being close to him, wishing forit. To have Moira fill that void felt like the cruelest kind of betrayal. It was a reminder that I did not own any part of myself. I was possessed not only by a hellhound’s immortal soul, but also by a demoness who could compel me into the most unsavory situations. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t scrub the stink of her off my skin.

The shower’s spray drove my eyes closed and pasted my hair over my ears, giving me a moment of peace. I’d been alone in the bathhouse since I arrived, but now a sound invaded the quiet. The slap-clack of plastic shoes striking the cement floors, drawing close.

I dipped my head to check the gap below the curtain, watching for the newcomer to pass by. When the glittery pink jelly sandals entered the narrow strip of my view, I recognized them immediately.

Indy stopped outside the shower stall, and I wasn’t sure what clued him in. My clothes were folded in a chair outside, but he couldn’t have been as familiar with my wardrobe as I was with his.

Breath hung in my lungs, and I hoped he would move along while wondering what he was doing in the grimy bathhouse in the first place.

“Legs?” His voice echoed in the cinderblock building. “That you?”

The curtain slid a few inches down the rod, and Indy’s head poked in.

“Hey!” He grinned. “Small world, smaller trailer park, am I right?”

He entered the stall dressed in a neon yellow tank top and pants with a towel slung around his neck. A bag of what I assumed to be clean clothes was hitched over hisshoulder, and he carried the Caboodle case that contained every item involved in his complicated shower routine.

Stepping back, I cupped my hands over my exposed genitals too late to avoid his notice.

He whistled. “Holy fuck, you’re hung. You could rearrange my guts with that thing.” His smile persisted as he gestured to my bare body. “I get it, though. Proportional.”

Tears lined my eyes, and it took all my self-control not to let them fall. I wondered if Indy would notice. Every part of me was dripping with water; they would blend right in.

As he surveyed me once more, his forehead creased. “What’re you doing here?” he asked. “Your place not have a shower?”

I couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak at all. My throat felt raw, and my mouth was dry. I shivered, chilling outside of the shower’s spray while Indy crept closer.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

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