Page 37 of Psychotic Faith
"Faith…"
"I'm tired of being good." The words rip from my throat, though I don't fully understand what I mean. Tired of what? Of following rules? Of being alone? It's easier not to examine it too closely.
His eyes search mine for a long moment, looking for hesitation, for doubt. He won't find hesitation about the sex, at least. That much I'm sure of.
He crushes his mouth to mine, and this time there's no hesitation from either of us. His hands are everywhere: my hair, my throat, my breasts through the cardigan that suddenly feels like too much fabric. I tear at his shirt, buttons scattering across my floor, needing to feel skin against skin.
"Bedroom," I gasp against his mouth.
"No." He spins us away from the wall, carrying me to the couch. "Here. Where you sit every night before bed, thinking about violence while you try to read."
He knows. Of course he knows. But I push that thought away. This is just bodies meeting. Just need.
He sets me on the arm of the couch, hands sliding up my thighs, pushing my skirt higher. His touch leaves trails of fire on my skin, and I realize I don't want gentleness. Don't want careful. I want the edge of violence that matches something I can't name, won't name.
"Don't be gentle," I tell him, and his eyes flash with something dangerous.
"I wasn't planning to be." His hand wraps around my throat, not squeezing, just holding, feeling my pulse race under his palm. "You want to know what I am, Faith? What you're choosing?"
"I'm not choosing anything except this moment," I lie to both of us. "Just sex. Just bodies."
"And what are you really?"
"Someone who needs to feel something other than empty," I deflect, not ready to admit the darker truths. "Someone who's tired of being alone with her thoughts."
His grip on my throat tightens slightly, and I moan at the pressure. "You beautiful, terrible thing," he murmurs, using his free hand to tear my cardigan open. Buttons ping against the coffee table. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to stop pretending."
"I'm not pretending, I'm just…" But I can't finish the thought because I don't know what I am anymore.
"I've watched you plan, Faith. Seen the drawings you make in the margins of library books when you think no one's looking. Watched you research poisons and untraceable deaths while surrounded by children's picture books." His thumb strokes my throat while his other hand finds the clasp of my bra. "You're not innocent corrupted. You're darkness revealed."
"Stop," I gasp, not wanting to hear this, not ready. I capture his mouth with mine to stop him from talking.
The bra isn't off my shoulders before his mouth is on my breast—hot, hungry, edged with a snap of teeth that makes me yelp. I dig my fingers into his shoulder, nails scoring lines that will outlast my next shower, and he shudders against me like the pain's a secret language. Maybe it is. I don't have time to think about it, because my hands are already at his belt, fumbling the buckle with an urgency bordering on panic. I don't even know how to want something gently anymore. I need the friction, the violence, the obliteration of everything that came before this moment.
He devours my nipple, tongue flicking, teeth scraping, until the sensation blooms from sharp to electric. I arch under him, clutching his hair, and he grins against my skin—my stalker, the man who murdered for me, the one thing in my life I could never escape even if I ran. He knows it. I know it. The only way out is through.
He lifts me, effortless, like I'm made of paper and not years of self-doubt and repression. He pivots, turning us so my back is against the couch, and in the same movement spins me to face the cushions, folding me over the backrest while my knees hit the seat. My skirt is up around my waist, the air on my thighs cold compared to the heat of his hands. His palm comes down on my ass—loud, stinging, not quite pain but the suggestion of it—and the sound cracks the silence of my apartment. I gasp. He does it again, heavier this time, and I realize he’s painting me in his own palette, claiming every surface. My skin tingles. It doesn't matter who's watching now. I want him to see all of me.
"Is this what you want, Faith?" His voice rasps at the nape of my neck while he presses against me, still fully clothed, still in total control. "To be ruined by someone who can't rememberthe last good thing he did?" His hips dig into my backside like punctuation. "To come for me. To come because of what I am?”
I flinch, the words as sharp as his touch, but the ache in me refuses to retreat. I want to scream at him not to call it that, not to make it real, but that's what the last year has been: a slow, torturous unveiling. He saw me before I saw myself. “Don’t,” I choke, twisting my head to glare at him as my cheek presses into the plush. "Don't say it. Just—fuck me. Please." It's the most honest thing to leave my mouth in months.
He laughs, low and dangerous, and yanks my underwear down. He doesn't peel it away—he tears it, the elastic popping, the delicate lace splitting with a sound as obscene as anything that’s about to happen. My thighs quake. He runs a hand down my spine, and I feel how aroused I am, how shamefully ready, when his fingers slide through and into me without warning. Two knuckles deep, his other hand bracing my hip.
"All this for me?" His fingers pump, deliberate and sure, stretching me, drawing noises from me I didn't know I could make. "You're soaked, Faith. You want a killer’s hands inside you?"
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn't help. The sensations are too much. “Shut up,” I gasp, but my body betrays me—I'm pushing back, grinding against his palm, wanting more, greedy for it. The line between humiliation and exhilaration blurs. My head spins.
He leans in, lips at my ear. “You know what I thought about, every night I watched you through that camera? How you would taste. How you would sound when you fell apart for me.” He adds a third finger, stretching me open, and it hurts in a way that makes me desperate. "You never touched yourself the way you needed to. Always so careful, so clinical. Like you were afraid you might lose control."
His thumb circles my clit, slow and deliberate, and my knees buckle. I can't hold myself up. He has to keep me upright with one arm while he works me with the other, like I'm a puppet and he’s the only one who knows where the strings connect. The orgasm comes on so fast it's like a blackout. My vision tunnels. My whole body convulses. I cry out, not caring if it’s a word or just a sound, coming so hard I nearly slip off the couch.
But he's not done. He lets me sag for a second, then flips me back over, so I'm on my back, legs hanging off the edge of the couch. He's kneeling on the floor, face level with my cunt, and for a second I see him exactly how I've always feared and wanted: not a man, but a wolf, eyes pale and hungry, ready to devour the thing he’s obsessed over for so long.
He dives in, tongue greedy, licking me clean, and the taste of myself on his mouth feels like a brand. He doesn't stop until I'm shaking. He doesn't stop even after that. I claw at his shoulders, trying to push him away, but he's stronger and relentless and I'm too weak to resist. When he finally pulls back, his lips swollen, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stares at me like he’s trying to memorize this version of me—wrecked, ruined, unable to hide.
He stands, voice rough. “You want this?” He fumbles with his zipper, cock out and hard, already leaking. I can't look away. “Do you want my cock inside you, Faith?”
