CHAPTER 97

EVEN THROUGH BLURRED vision, waves of nausea rolling through him, tears pooling in his eyes, and pain—worse than any he has ever encountered, every breath a fresh smack of madness—Marcus wants her. Two years since he’s had cunt. He thinks about her naked, the glow of her skin on camera, that impression only slightly dampened by the clothes covering her skin. Gorgeous, her legs on either side of him, the light weight of her body straddled atop him like she is about to give him the ride of his motherfucking life. But her smile worries him. It beams, as if today might just be the best day ever, as if she has just became the fucking prom queen. It doesn’t mix with the knife in her hand, his knife, the one that she flips with surprising efficiency, as if she was born with it in her grip, as if she has plans in store with it.

And suddenly, her looks don’t matter. Because the sudden fact, one that eluded him while he was writhing on the floor, his mind breaking apart at the seams, hits him square. She, this tiny girl with long dark hair and eyes that scream her madness to the world, might be his downfall. And with death, not prison. An even more intolerable sentence, one impossible to return from, one that fills him with fear, his Catholic upbringing suddenly pushing to mind all of his crimes. All of the people he stepped on. Women he damaged. Lives he ruined. He’d thought the devil had come in the form of Katie McLaughlin. But no. It is Her.

He blinks hard, the action clearing the tears, his improved clarity taking in the view before him, his chest inhaling as she runs the knife softly across his shirt. Her hand shakes, the knife jiggling slightly in her palm as it makes its path. Nerves? She doesn’t look nervous. She looks… excited. Eager.

It is almost, in the final moments of his life, arousing—the knowledge that this beautiful creature could embrace, look forward to, enjoy the art of pain, of control. They say that love is finding your soul’s match in another. His cock hardens of its own accord, her eyes flickering to his as the consistency beneath her changes. He rolls his shoulders, trying to relieve the pain of lying on handcuffed hands. She shifts, rolling backward, testing his arousal. Then she chuckles, clicking her tongue disapprovingly and reaches up, gripping the knife with both hands and, with one swift move, buries it into the muscles of his chest.

His hard-on withers and dies, right about the time that his chest seizes with incredible pain.