Page 21 of The King of Hearts

I move my hand away from my pussy and lift it so I can see the evidence of my depravity. My fingers are coated in a thick, clear liquid. Curiosity has me bringing them to my mouth. I slide one over my lips, spreading it around. Then my tongue darts out and licks it away.

I’ve never tasted myself before, and I don’t know why I’m doing it now.

A dark voice in the back of my head whispers, “Lick them clean.”

I don’t even attempt to ignore the figment of my imagination and slip my fingers into my mouth. There’s bitterness, a trace of saltiness, and a hint of something sweet. I twirl my tongue around my fingers and lick away my cum.

I sag against the counter and force away all thoughts of what I’ve just done. Not the licking my fingers part, but the part before that. The whole fantasy and making myself come. Maybe if I manage to push it away far enough, I can pretend it didn’t actually happen. Maybe the masked man won’t ever return.

I know that’s not true, though. A man who claims what he did last night doesn’t just stop, not to mention the immoral act he committed when he sent me Patrick’s heart.

And the thing is, I’m not entirely sure I want him to.

Marcelo is waitingfor me when I walk out of the estate’s doors an hour later. His clothes are impeccable in dark gray trousers, a matching blazer, and a black button-up shirt. His dark hair is pulled back in his usual ponytail.

He stands like a statue beside the black Mercedes with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. His one green eye stares at me as I approach.

“Good morning,” I greet with a smile.

“Morning,” he grunts in reply before he turns and opens the back passenger door.

Once I’m settled inside, I set the box from last night on the seat between us. “We’ll be stopping by The Cove when we leave the clinic this afternoon.”

The Cove is my secret spot on the island. It’s on the opposite side and sits not far from the Ellington Estate on the cliffs. Decades ago, it belonged to the founders of the island, the Ellingtons. The rumor is that Miles Ellington gifted it to his wife, Patricia, when she developed agoraphobia and refused to leave their house in the city after she was attacked on the streets one night. Miles purchased the island and built The Cove to give his wife a safe place to live. She went into hysterics when anyone but her husband or their two children were around, so the island was her refuge away from the madness in her head. The Cove was abandoned when Miles had a newer, bigger house built, and it’s been empty since.

I found it one day before I hit my teens while wandering around the island. Dad and Mom drilled it into my and my brother’s heads to stay away from the Ellington house, butI was always a curious child and liked to explore. The old imposing mansion on the edge of the cliff scared my young mind, but it didn’t prevent me from walking right up to the gates surrounding the property. The wrought iron was old and rusty, and on either side of the gate were massive stone wolf heads. It looked like it was something out of an old gothic movie. A haunted mansion where ghosts of the past wandered its halls.

Given his wife’s paranoid nature, the household staff only consisted of a cook, a groundsman, and a single guard that Miles hired to keep watch over his wife while he was gone during business trips. No one knows for sure, but the rumor on the island is that Miles came home one day and found his wife in bed with the guard and murdered them both. Hacked their bodies into pieces and placed them in the walls of the mansion.

I pull myself out of my musings. Marcelo doesn’t ask what’s in the box. He just briefly glances at it before putting his eyes forward again. That’s why he and I get along so well. He doesn’t ask me things, and I return the courtesy.

He’s never been a big talker, and my thoughts are still consumed by last night, so we spend the short five-minute drive to the clinic in silence. Once we’re there, we get out of the car and make our way inside. He follows me from a distance. Close enough should he be needed, but far enough away that I don’t feel like he’s hovering.

I stop by the employee lounge and put my purse in one of the lockers. Leaving the room, I follow the hall down to the entertainment room.

I volunteer here once a week. We don’t have a true hospital on Hollow’s Reef, but the Hollow’s Medical Center acts as one as much as it can with the resources it has. Within the clinic, there’s a small wing dedicated to people with mental illnesses, and I donate my time during the hours the patients spend here.

“Margie, hey,” I greet the Director of Nursing, who’s sitting behind the desk outside the entertainment room.

She smiles. “I’m glad you’re here. Lena called in because her babysitter had an emergency and couldn’t watch her kids. We’re short-staffed today.”

“Where do you need me?”

“Would you mind visiting Dara for a while?”

“Of course. You know I adore Dara.”

Pushing open one of the double doors, I make my way over to a round table in a corner. The pretty, petite redhead that sits in one of the chairs is wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a white V-neck t-shirt. Her long auburn hair is braided, and the rope hangs down her back. She sits with her chair pushed back and her hands flat on the table as she glares down at something on the floor in front of her.

Dara Kincaid is twenty-five and has been in the Hollow’s psychiatric ward since she was seventeen. No one knows what happened to her, and they can’t get the story out of her. One day, she was a normal young woman with friends, a boyfriend, popular, and made perfect grades in school. She had been accepted into Harvard and had a bright future ahead of her. Then it was like a switch was flipped, and she changed.

“Hey, Dara,” I say, approaching her from the side so I don’t startle her. “How are you this morning?”

“Shhh,” she hisses, keeping her head down. She points to a blank spot on the floor, still glaring. “They’re listening. We aren’t supposed to be here.” She keeps her voice a barely audible whisper.

I look down, seeing nothing on the linoleum floor, then back at her. I make sure my voice is low enough to hopefully appease her. “What are we looking at?”

“Don’t you see it?” she asks, tilting her head to the side like she’s looking at whatever she sees at a different angle. “That little hole. That’s where he comes from.”

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