Page 19 of To Love a Monster
His eyes flicker, something violent and guttural behind them.His jaw ticks once.Twice.Like he’s swallowing a storm.The temperature in the air shifts.“No,” he says, voice low enough to drag along my spine.“I think you owe it to yourself to stop lying about how bad you want me, even if you don’t understand the reason why.Even if it makes no sense.”
“Don’t act like you know how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking.You’ve just watched me from afar.You actually have no clue who I am.”He takes a step closer.Slow and predatory, like he’s not sure if he wants to taste me or tear me apart.
“You didn’t answer my question.”His voice dips, dangerous.“When you were smiling, laughing withhim, did it help you pretend I wasn’t there?That I wasn’t real?”
“Yes.”I lie.“I wasn't thinking about mystalkerwhen I was chatting to Carl.I actually enjoy his company.Carl is kind, normal, he doesn’t treat me like prey.Doesn’t lurk in shadows and send fucked-up texts.He doesn’t show up at my house uninvited.”
Suddenly, his mouth twists, and something cruel pulls at the corners as clear, untamed jealousy flashes across his features.“Then why don’t you take the next step and go fuck him?You think thatkindandnormalis what you’re really craving?If so, then I truly do know you better than you know yourself, and I haven’t even laid a finger on you yet.”The words land like a gunshot, cold and precise.Meant to maim.“So go ahead.If he’s your type, then why not try it out?Lie back, let him touch you with hands that wouldn’t even know how to please a woman like you.Pretend he could ever satisfy that pretty ache between your legs.And when you’re done, when you realize that all you did was sign his death certificate, I’ll be here waiting.”My stomach flips.
“You’re insane,” I whisper.I don’t know what else to say with the air ripped out of my lungs.
He steps in, close enough that the heat of him scorches through the fabric between us.Close enough that I feel his restraint unraveling thread by thread.His hand rises, not to touch me.Just to hover.
“And you,” he says, voice dipped in something feral, something final, “aremine.”
He doesn’t give me time to breathe, let alone react.One hand flies out, rough and unforgiving, seizing my waist like he’s claiming stolen territory.A sound slips from me, soft and startled, as he yanks me into his solid chest.It’s not gentle, it’s dominance in motion.A demand carved into movement.The collision knocks the breath from my lungs.Every part of me slams into heat and muscle and power, like slamming into a wave of pure violence barely restrained by skin.
He’s fire in a human form, heat rippling off him in waves, licking at my hoodie, soaking through the thin fabric and branding me underneath.My palms splay against his chest, unthinking, desperate for balance, for control, for something to keep me from falling.But there’s no safety here.No anchor.Only the chaos he is and the storm he brings with him.
His breath ghosts across my neck, slow and controlled.Like he’s wrestling back something feral.My pulse kicks wildly.Relentless and screaming.He feels it, I know he does.It’s in the twitch of his jaw.The sharp inhale between his teeth.The way his fingers tighten on my waist like he wants to crush the space between our bones.Then his other hand rises, so slowly it feels cruel.Rough knuckles trail up the column of my throat, sending shockwaves under my skin.He drags them down to the hollow at the base of my neck, lingering just above the neckline of my hoodie.He grazes lower, barely brushing the upper curve of my breast.Not quite touching but just close enough to make me burn for it.
My breath hiccups and my thighs clench.A live wire.Too much want, too much heat, too muchhim.And then his face is closer, so close.His lips hover over mine but he doesn’t touch.It’s a threat, a promise of possession and my knees nearly buckle.I know I should shove him away.I should scream, fight, run.But I don’t.Because in some fucked up way, I realize that I want to experience the danger, experience him.And he knows.Oh, fuck, he knows.His mouth twists, dark and lethal.That same crooked grin like he’s already won and then he steps back.Ripping the heat out of the air like he never even touched me.Like he didn’t just take something from me I didn’t even know I was offering.
“Wait—” It rips out of me before I can stop it.Panic, desperation, need.He pauses.His silhouette already halfway swallowed by shadow.“What’s your name?”A long beat of silence.For a moment I think he’s just going to keep on walking without another word.Then he speaks, his voice low, “Nikolai.”And he disappears into the dark.But that name, it burns its way under my skin like a brand.And I know I’ll never get it out.
****
Surveillance Log: L.M
Subject: Lila Montgomery
Location: Deck Perimeter, Visual Contact—Direct
Status: Breach of Containment / Voluntary Exposure / Initial Contact Established
She came to the door.Didn’t scream.Didn’t run.Didn’t even flinch when she saw me standing there like death in a hoodie.She stepped toward me.One barefoot step after the next, like she wanted to be hunted.She had a knife in her hand.God, it was adorable.Shaking grip.White knuckles.A little tremble in her lip she thought I wouldn’t catch.I caught it all right, and I caught the heat in her too.
That pulse behind her throat.The way her breath hitched when I told her to drop the blade.She didn’t want to.But she didn’t want me to leave, either.I knew she wouldn’t let me.
The moment my hand touched her cheek, I felt it, the fight in her gut warring with the part of her that wants to submit.And when I called her mine?She didn’t correct me.Not really.She challenged me.Threw her defiance in my face like it meant something.Like her stubborn little fists and trembling jaw made her immune to what I feel for her.
She said Carl was normal.Kind.As if any of that matters when I’d ruin her in ways Carl couldn’t begin to imagine.And I told her to fuck him.I fucking dared her.Told her to sign his death certificate with every moan, every breath.Because if she lets him touch her?If she lets him between those thighs?I’ll snap his neck with my bare hands.No hesitation.No orders.No cleanup crew.Just the sound of her crying out while I painted the walls with his blood for daring to claim what’s mine.
That’s what she does to me.It’s not poetry.It’s not flowers.It’s fire barely contained beneath skin stretched too tight over want.She tried to deny the truth.When I gripped her, instead of resisting, she stepped into me and pressed her body to mine like she was begging to be broken.Her words no longer match what her body says, and I nearly gave in.
I saw the truth printed on her body.How she leaned in, how her hips tilted forward.How she opened her mouth like she was already imagining how I’d fill it.
Her reaction was almost my undoing.If I didn’t step away, I knew it would just be a matter of time before I lost control.I’d be on my knees in front of her, tearing those shorts down her thighs with my teeth.I’d press her back against the glass where I’ve stood watching her.Show her what it means to be worshiped by a monster, my tongue buried so deep she wouldn’t remember how to breathe without my name in her mouth.
I almost gave in.I almost kissed her.I wanted to.Fuck, I wanted to taste the wine on her tongue and force her to admit that nothing would ever satisfy her the way that I can.I needed to get away from her before I pushed too far too fast.So I turned to leave.
Then she asked me my name.That’s when I knew I was too far gone, because I actually gave it to her.No mask, no alias.Just me.And now she knows what to call the wolf that’s always watching, Always waiting.Let her paint me all she wants.Let her dream.Let her ache.Let her fantasize about kissing me and ache for my presence, because I won’t step away from my sweet little lamb.It’s too late for me now, and next time, I won’t hold back.No.Next time, I take her.Allof her.And I don’t plan on giving any of it back
—N
