Page 17 of Psychotic Faith
"Every. Single. Night." Each word deliberate, watching her pupils dilate further. "Memorizing your breathing patterns. Ensuring your safety. Stopping myself from waking you up and showing you exactly who guards your sleep."
"You're insane."
"And you're soaking." Not a question. I can smell it, that sweet musk that says her body recognizes its owner even if her mind rebels. "Soaking for the man who kills for you. Who watches you sleep. Who knows every secret you think you've hidden."
She tries to push past me, but I shift my weight, my thigh sliding between her legs as I press closer. We both freeze at the contact. Her heat against my leg, the pressure making her gasp. The scent of her arousal intensifies, mixing with jasmine from her shampoo and something uniquely her—a pheromone signature I've been cataloguing for weeks.
"You've been in my apartment," she breathes, but it's not quite the accusation it should be.
I study the pulse hammering in her throat, resist the urge to press my lips there, to mark her. I savor the warmth of her soft belly so close to my hard, hard cock. "I know you write in that journal you hide in the air vent, not under your mattress like you want people to think."
"How could you possibly—"
"I know Trent Neumann is responsible for your mother's death." The words hang between us like a blade. "And I know you want him to pay."
"You're ruining everything!" The words explode from her like she's been holding them back all night. "Years of planning, of getting close to his family, of building trust, and you—you just—"
"He was going to touch you." My jaw clenches at the memory of Neumann approaching her earlier. "His hand was already reaching when I made him run."
"I wanted him to get close!" She beats her fist against my chest, but there's no real force behind it. "That was the point! That was the whole point of tonight!"
"No." My hand catches her wrist, thumb finding her pulse point. Radial artery pounding at one hundred forty beats per minute now. "The point of tonight was for you to find me. To stop hiding behind folded paper messages and shadows. To admit what your body already knows."
"That you're a psychopath who breaks into my home?"
"That you're mine." I press my thumb harder against her racing pulse. "Have been since the first Polaroid. Since before that, when you started looking for me in the darkness. Your body knew I was there before your mind caught up."
"Seven bodies," she whispers suddenly, and there's something in her voice that isn't fear. "You think that makes you my savior? That's seven witnesses who could have testified against Neumann. Seven pieces of evidence you destroyed."
The observation is so unexpectedly clever that it sharpens my desire, and my cock hardens painfully against my zipper. When I lean in, my erection presses against her stomach through our clothes. Her eyes widen at the evidence of what she does to me.
"Nine bodies," I correct. "And they weren't witnesses. They were threats. Men who thought they could look at you, want you, approach you."
"That's not your choice to make."
"Everything about you is my choice now." I release her wrist, let my fingers trail down her arm, feeling her shiver. "What you wear. Where you go. Who you speak to. Who lives after looking at you."
"You don't own me."
"Don't I?" I pull the Polaroid from my pocket. Black paper this time, taken during the endless hours of last night while I watched her sleep through my cameras. "Your body says otherwise. The way you're grinding against my thigh says otherwise."
She stills, apparently just realizing she's been moving against me. The flush spreads down her neck, disappearing beneath the neckline of her dress.
"You're sick," she breathes, but her hips haven't stopped moving entirely.
"And you like it." I tuck the photograph into the neckline of her dress, my fingers brushing the heated skin of her chest forjust a moment. She gasps at the contact, and I feel her heartbeat against my knuckles. Wild, desperate. "You like that someone's watching. Protecting. Killing for you."
"I didn't ask for any of this."
"You didn't have to." I lean closer, my lips almost touching hers. "Your body asks for it every time you wear that nightgown to bed. Every time you look out your window at 3 a.m. wondering if I'm watching. Every time you kiss my Polaroids like they're love letters."
Her breath shudders against my mouth. "I should be terrified of you."
"You should be." I pull back just enough to see her eyes, wide and dark with want. "I'm everything your father warned you about. Everything you should run from. But you won't run, will you, little faith? Because some part of you has been waiting for someone like me. Someone who sees past the mask."
"You don't know me."
"I know you dream about violence. Know you wake up dripping from thoughts of revenge. Know you've been planning Neumann's destruction with the patience of a saint and the dedication of a sinner." My hand finds her throat, not squeezing, just resting there, feeling her pulse race under my palm. "I know you better than you know yourself."
