Page 7 of Lamb

9

ADRIAN

Anyone else would have seen the blood seeping out of their gut as a bad thing. Me? I’d been fucking entranced. Staring down and watching my black shirt turn an almost purple color. The fabric tacky against my skin, the wound warm to the touch with that slight metallic scent that tainted the air.

I was the kind of guy who liked my steaks rare and my cadavers fresh. But I wasn’t numb to the pain. I felt it. Felt every delicious twinge. More than that, I liked it. I liked the push and pull of the blade as it penetrated my skin. Enjoyed the gleam in her eye. The sheer joy she seemed to experience the moment she believed she outsmarted me.

I knew I’d left myself open to her. Vulnerable. I just didn’t care.

Not when I had her squirming beneath me, grinding herself against my thigh like the little whore she was pretending to be.

I had to pay attention to the blood loss. I knew that. I couldn’t fall out in some alley in the middle of the city and allow just anyone to find me. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave her either. Especially when she started probing at the open gash, using her fingers to separate the layers of epidermis before dipping them inside to use my own blood as lubricant for my cock.

I groaned, and even I could hear how animalistic it sounded.

A few quick strokes left me rock-hard and dying to plunge into any one of her holes. At this point, it didn’t matter which. Her mouth, her ass, that virgin pussy. I didn’t care. Not as long as she kept making those high-pitched whimpers in the back of her throat.

I watched in awe through the slits in my mask as Marisela slowly crouched in front of me, balancing herself on her haunches as she eyed my cock. Which was now level with her face. Bouncing and throbbing while she stared at it like it was the most fascinating thing she’d seen in her life before peeking out her tongue and taking a tentative lick. Tasting both me and my blood.

I leaned forward to brace myself on the wall behind her to keep from crumbling to my knees when she then sucked the tip between her hollowed cheeks. Her actions as bold as they were curious. And I knew my assumption had been right.

My little lamb was aching to be touched. To be defiled. And I was the man to do it. Just not right now. Not like this.

I wanted to take my time with her. To bring her to thatedge and leave her there. Panting, twitching, cursing my name. I wanted to ruin her for any man who even thought about coming after me.

An image that gave me pause and sent a fresh wave of rage rushing through me as I tugged Marisela to her feet, shoved her back against the closest surface, and dropped to my knees. Then I reached out a hand, feeling around the asphalt until my fingers were curling around the hilt of her little pocket knife, and grinned.

10

MARISELA

I’d let my hormones get the best of me. Not that it was the first time. I’d inherited this impulsive streak from my mother. Or so my father liked to remind me every chance he got. He also liked to remind me what happened toimpulsive women. Told me all about the procedure his surgeon friend performed on Mama the last time she tried to run away.

She was never the same after that. Almost like she’d had the life drained out of her, her eyes vacant and unseeing and her expressions stiff and emotionless. She was compliant, sure. But her spark was gone. She didn’t sing or dance anymore. She barely looked up whenever someone entered a room. She was nothing more than a bag of organs and bones packaged up in a pretty flesh suit. Alive but no longer living.

And I refused to follow in her footsteps despite the loveless marriage that was hanging over me.

Climbing out that window was foolish. Seeking comfort in this man, fucking idiotic. Especially as I watched him wrap his heavy hand around my pocketknife and drag it up towards my navel. Pressing the tip close enough for me to feel the pressure but not enough for it to pierce skin.

I held my breath, waiting for the sting that was sure to come. But didn’t. Then I watched as he pivoted the blade back into the handle, tucked it into the inner lining of his coat pocket, and pushed to his full height to tower over me again.

I didn’t need to see past the mask to know that he was grinning. I could just tell by the way he held himself. His head slightly cocked to one side and his posture relaxed as he rocked back on the heels of those same stupidly expensive shoes.

“If you want it back, you’ll have to come find me, little lamb.”

“And if I don’t care enough to go looking?” I narrowed my glare in his direction while crossing my arms over my chest. “I have a dozen of those in my nightstand.”

This seemed to give him pause. But only for a moment. “What else do you have in that nightstand, Marisela?” he asked, reminding me he somehow knew my name and I still didn’t know his.

“Pepper spray and brass knuckles,” I hissed, and my shadow man let out an amused laugh.

He thought I was joking. I wasn’t. If someone crept into my bedroom in the middle of the night, thinking they’d do to me what they did to my mother, they were in for one hellof a surprise. In the form of burning tear ducts and bruised egos.

I’d sooner jump out the window head-first than let some quack scramble my frontal lobe with a brain pick.

“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “But you know what they say about curiosity?”

I rolled my eyes. “It killed the?—”

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