I nod. He rolls me onto my back and shifts down the bed and I watch him settle between my thighs with his hands pushing mylegs apart and his eyes locked on the place where I'm swollen and slick and marked by him.
He pushes my legs further apart, tilting my pelvis so I’m fully spread out and displayed for him. “So fucking perfect.” He lowers his mouth.
The first touch of his tongue makes my back arch off the mattress. He's slow, thorough, licking through the mess of his cum and my juices with flat, firm strokes that make my vision blur. His hands push the backs of my thighs, holding me open while he works, and the sounds he's making are obscene. Wet, hungry sounds like he's enjoying this as much as I am.
"You taste incredible," he says against me, his breath hot on my delicate skin. "My cum mixed with yours. Sweetest thing I've ever had."
My fingers twist in the sheets. My legs are shaking. He sucks my clit gently and then licks down, his tongue dipping inside me, and the noise I make is loud enough that I'd be embarrassed if I had any capacity left for embarrassment.
"That's it. Let me hear you. Don't you dare hold back." He circles my clit with the tip of his tongue, then sucks again, harder. "You took me so well last night. Three times and you didn't waste a single drop of cum. My perfect wife." He goes back to eating my pussy, ravishing it, sucking and slurping against my folds. Growling against my lips and getting firmer and firmer with the pressure he flicks over my swollen clit.
I come apart with a cry that echoes off the bedroom walls. His mouth stays on me through the entire thing, not stopping, drawing every last tremor out of my body until I'm limp and panting and my fingers ache from gripping the sheets.
He presses a kiss to my thigh, right next to the scar, and climbs back up my body. His mouth is wet when he kisses me and I tasteboth of us on his tongue and the filthy intimacy of it makes my chest crack open in a way I'm not prepared for.
We lie there for a while. His head on my chest, my fingers in his hair, the morning light growing stronger through the curtains.
"When does the next hunt begin?" I ask.
He lifts his head. Looks at me. Then he reaches to the nightstand and picks up a folded newspaper I hadn't noticed.
"It already has."
I take it. Unfold it. The headline is local, a column on page three. A woman attacked near a bus stop on the south side two weeks ago. Suspect described but not identified. Police investigation stalled.
I read it twice. The details settle into the part of my brain that catalogues and processes and plans. Location. Time of day. Description. Pattern.
"How long have you been watching for this?" I ask.
"Since the night I decided you were going to be mine. I just had to wait and make sure I wasn’t mistaken about you." He settles back against the pillows, his arm behind his head. "If something comes up, you decide what to do with it. I just make sure you’re safe."
I stare at the newspaper. Then at him.
"You’re giving me a wedding gift."
"I am."
Something fierce and bright moves through my chest. I set the paper down and look at the man beside me, and for the first time in six years, I don't feel alone.
"Tell me about one of them," he says.
"One of what?"
"Your targets. Tell me about one you're proud of."
I think about it. Not all of them are stories I want to revisit. Some were quiet, clinical, forgettable. But one sits in my memory differently.
"There was a man named Curtis Webor," I say. "Two years ago. He was a youth pastor at a church on the west side. Married. Two kids. Coached the girls' basketball team."
Yevgeny's jaw tightens. He already knows where this is going.
"Three girls came forward to their parents. Said he'd been touching them after practice. The parents went to the church leadership and the church buried it. Moved him to a different congregation. The parents went to the police and got told there wasn't enough evidence because the girls' statements were inconsistent. They were fourteen. Of course, their statements were inconsistent."
"What did you do?"
"I spent two weeks following him. Documenting. He was doing it again at the new church. Different girls, same pattern. I broke into his house while he was at work and cloned his laptop. The hard drive had everything on it. Photos. Messages. Everything the police said didn't exist."
"You gave it to law enforcement?"
