Page 12 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

Then again… “We’ve got six whole hours.”

“We’ve also got a whole lot of DNA,” she shoots back.

I shrug. That problem, at least, is easily solved. “Winner kills Howie and burns this place down afterward.”

She goes still in my arms, and I relax my grip, giving her another chance to slip away and end this little game.

She stays put, but she also stays silent, letting her earlier accusation ring in my ears. I know damn well she has no reason to trust the stranger manhandling her in the dark, but I try anyway. “I won’t take anything you don’t want to give me, killer.”

A beat passes before she says, “You will try to take Howard from me, though.”

I have no idea what my Morticia looks like, but I picture her frowning as she says this. And yeah, I’ll do my best to be the one to kill this motherfucker.

“I could just tie you up and carry you out of here so I can finish the job in peace.”

Her muscles tense, but I don’t tighten my hold on her again. This decision’s completely in her hands.

“A million years out of school, and I’m still getting bullied by dumb jocks,” she mutters. I bite back a laugh at being mistaken for either of those things, and it turns into a strangled groan when she looks over her shoulder and her eyes meet mine through the slits in our masks. It’s too dark to see the color or even the shape, but damned if they’re not the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen regardless. “How’d you know it was him?”

I hesitate, then figure what the hell. It’s not like we’ll see each other after tonight.

“He fits the psych profile. A person of interest in past arsons. Failed the city firefighter test six times. Was raised by a grandmother he hated and was off work two Saturdays ago.”

The night Mary Glenn’s house burned.

Neighbor girl’s face floats into my memory.

Right. Rue. The reason I’m here. She doesn’t belong in this closet with two killers. She’d be horrified if she knew what I was doing tonight, and doubly so if she knew I was doing it because Howard Marshall’s actions made her sad at the mailbox.

Good thing she’ll never know what I really am.

Then Morticia slides the hand not holding her knife higher up my uninjured thigh and reminds me exactly who I’m in this closet with.

Obsess over one woman at a time, jackass.

“The container outside the closet,” she says as her hand travels toward my groin. “Was that powdered aluminum?”

“Ye-sssss.” My affirmative answer turns into a hiss when those seeking fingers finally reach my dick, which had been happily wedged against her ass and is now even happier to be squeezed. “It was in the spare bedroom with the potassium nitrate. How did you k-know?” Another squeeze. “The cops haven’t released that detail,” I choke out.

“You’re not the only one who can research,” she replies, and fuck, this girl is sneaky. Getting me to talk while her nimble fingers are busy, busy, busy. “That’s what he used in the most recent fire.”

“A solid oxidizer and a metal fuel.” I’m falling behind in our competition, so I run my long middle finger along the seam of her leggings. She jolts like she’s been electrified. “But he used different combinations in those three other house fires.”

“It’s four,” she says on a gasp as I press lightly on her clit through the thin material. “Four other high-temp accelerant fires, plus Mary Glenn’s.”

I mean to catalog the way she says Mary’s name, with devastation and a promise, so I can pull it apart again later and make sense of it. But she presses the heel of her hand against the head of my dick, and every coherent thought is lost in a blast of pleasure.

“Okay. Five total.” I slap the flat of my fingers against her core, drawing a whimper from her.

“And then the burn cream… the…” Her chest expands in a huge inhale. “The trash. It’s definitely him.”

“Definitely. And I think you’re going to come fast for me,” I whisper in her ear as she rubs herself against my fingers, “which means I get to end his miserable life.”

Now she’s shifting in my hold, likely trying to jack me off at a less awkward angle, but I act like the dumb jock she accused me of being and refuse to budge an inch or help her, despite my body screaming What the fuck are you doing? Let her touch your dick the way she wants, idiot. But watching my Morticia try to maneuver her way out of an impossible situation—an impossible situation created by me—charges my nerves almost as much as her touch, especially when she gives a little growl and pushes up the bottom of her mask.

“What are you doing?” Alarm and elation hit me at once. Does she want me to see her face? Do I want to see her face? That would send this encounter in a whole new direction, and I’m not at all prepared for it.

“Shut up,” she mutters as she bites one fingertip of her glove and tugs. She moves on to the next finger and the next until she can yank the whole glove off with her teeth and drops it to the floor. The angle’s wrong for me to catch a glimpse of her lips when she switches her knife to her other hand and makes quick work of the second glove, but I stop caring when she tugs the mask back into place and reaches between our bodies again. I didn’t think it was possible for me to get even harder, but her bare fingers are some kind of black magic, even through the fabric of my pants.