I zip up, the metal teeth sounding like a death knell. I’ve got work to do. Noah thinks he’s getting a wife. He’s actually just getting a front-row seat to his own funeral.
I pick up my knife, the blade catching the light, and start to sharpen it. Shink. Shink. Shink.
The hunt isn’t over. It’s just getting hungry.
The sun is a searing weight on the back of my neck, but I’m shivering. I’m cold with a hunger that doesn’t have a name.
I look back down at the vial. There’s a smear left on the glass rim—a thick, pearlescent streak of the sin we committed while the world slept. I don’t use the spoon this time. I shove my tongue into the narrow opening of the glass, licking it raw, scraping my taste buds against the edge until I taste the sharp, iron tang of my own blood mingling with the cream of her surrender.
“God, you taste like a funeral, Scarlett,” I hiss, my voice dropping into a register that’s barely human. “The death of everything you used to be. The birth of everything I’m making you.”
I reach down and wrap my hand around my cock again. It’s still weeping, still angry, still stone-hard. I smear the mixture of my spit, her scent, and my own blood down the length of it. I’m painting myself in her. I’m marinating in the wreckage of the girl she was before I broke the lock on her soul.
I stroke myself with a brutal, punishing rhythm. I’m not being gentle. I want the friction to burn. I want to feel the sting because it’s the only thing that matches the fire in my gut. I’m making a mess of myself in this rot-filled shack, and I don’t give a single fuck.
“I’m going to ruin you, baby,” I groan, my hips jerking against the edge of the table. “I’m going to strip that blue dress off you and show Noah exactly where I bit you. I’m going to show him how you leak for me when you’re terrified.”
I think about her mouth. That soft, trembling mouth that tried to say no while her body was screaming yes. I imagine shoving my fingers back into her throat, forcing her to swallow the truth of what we are.
I’m moving faster now, the table groaning under my weight, the air in the shack thick with the smell of sex, sweat, and impending death. My eyes are locked on the villa. I see a shadow move behind the glass.
Is it her? Is she looking for me?
“Watch me, Scarlett,” I snarl, my teeth bared. “Look into the trees and feel me cumming. Feel me twitching in your hand while you hold his. Feel me filling your mouth while you eat his goddamn brunch.”
The orgasm hits me like a freight train. It’s not a release; it’s an explosion. I roar her name, a jagged, terrifying sound that rips through the humid air. I don’t care if the security teams hear me. Let them come. Let them see what a man looks like when he’s been hollowed out by a goddess and filled back up with gasoline.
I collapse against the post, panting, my skin slick and shimmering with the evidence of my obsession. I look down at my hand—covered in the mess of us.
I don’t reach for a rag. I don’t clean it off.
I bring my hand to my face and inhale. Deep. Until my lungs burn. I lick my palm clean, slow and deliberate, consuming every drop of the filth I’ve created. It’s bitter. It’s salty. It’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.
“I’ve got your scent in my marrow now, Scarlett,” I whisper, my tongue sliding over my lower lip. “You can’t wash me off. You can’t pray me away.”
I stand up, my legs heavy, my head spinning with the high of it. I grab a discarded piece of white lace I stole from her laundry bag three days ago. I wipe the remaining vial-drip ontothe centre of the fabric, a Rorschach test of pure, unadulterated possession.
I pull out my lighter. I don’t burn it. I just heat the lace until the scent of her rises in a small, concentrated cloud of steam, then I press the hot fabric against my chest, right over my heart, branding the smell into my skin.
“Noah is a dead man,” I say, the certainty of it settling in my bones. “He just doesn’t know he’s a corpse yet.”
I pick up my binoculars one last time.
Noah is leaning over her now, his hand on the back of her neck. He thinks he’s being dominant. He thinks he’s in control.
I see her eyes. They’re looking straight at the jungle. Straight at me.
I press two fingers to my lips and blow a kiss into the wind—a kiss made of salt, cum, and the promise of a massacre.
“Dinner’s coming, baby,” I grin, my teeth flashing in the shadows. “And I’m the only thing on the menu.”
Kai
The jungle is loud at night.
Not the pretty kind of loud tourists talk about. Not cicadas and soft waves and romance. This is rot-noise. Wet leaves tearing under insects. Something big moving where it shouldn’t. The kind of sound that tells you the land doesn’t care if you live or die.
Good. Neither do I.
