STONE

Callum and I have been out on plenty of dates over the past couple of years. Some romantic. Some bloody.

I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited as I am for this one.

Lacey found another of our coach’s friends. I knew she would. As far as we both know, this is the last one.

The piece of shit is currently tied to a chair in the bedroom of mine and Callum’s cabin with several layers of rope and duct tape. His head hangs forward like a rag doll from all the drugs I’ve pumped into him. He’s been here for nearly twelve hours already while I had to go back for Callum.

We discussed everything well in advance. He didn’t know it’d be happening today, so he’ll be nice and surprised when he finally wakes up.

He’s out under only a mild sedative, so he won’t feel too much like shit when he wakes. I also didn’t shove him in the truck this time. I made sure he was laid out comfortably in the backseat on the ride here.

Now, he’s on the bed in nothing but his boxers, his hands tied to the headboard with black, silky rope.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep my distance, leaning against the doorframe with my cock already rock solid in my jeans. He’s let me play with him while he sleeps too often, and now my dick is conditioned to respond to his unconscious state.

He groans in his sleep.

I reach down to palm my cock over my jeans.

Fuck it.

Ignoring the other unconscious man in the corner of the room, I approach the foot of the bed and crawl up between Callum’s legs, pushing his thighs apart to give me more space. He doesn’t stir as I dip my head down and sweep my tongue from his navel up over the hills and valleys of his abs. I let out a moan at the taste of him.

Letting my tongue travel higher, I stop to swirl it around his left nipple before taking it into my mouth. It hardens under my breath as I suck on it. When I lightly nip, Callum gasps and shifts beneath me.

“Stone?” he murmurs drowsily.

“I’m here, baby. You’re safe.” I move over to his other nipple and give that one the same treatment.

He whines and thrusts his hips up, rubbing his thickening cock against my stomach through the thin fabric of his underwear. My own presses even more painfully against my zipper.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, keeping my voice low as I continue my upward path of his body with my tongue. I stop once again, this time at the pulse point in his neck. Flattening my tongue against his throat, I feel his slowed heart rate from the effects of the sedative. Then I kiss the spot. “Are you hurting anywhere?”

“No,” he whispers. “Just a little groggy. But relaxed.”

“Good.”

“You didn’t put me in the trunk this time?”

I chuckle because, of course, that’s where his mind would go.

“Laid you out on the backseat with a pillow and a blanket. Swaddled you like a fucking baby. You’ve never looked so cozy.”

He groans. “I fucking hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Raising myself up, I bring a hand up and tangle my fingers in his hair before gripping tight and tugging his head back exactly where I want it so I can crash my mouth to his. He gasps again, his breathing picking up as I sink my teeth into his bottom lip. I dart my tongue out, soothing the bite with a long, hot swipe across his entire mouth.

“You’re right,” he says, panting already, his fully hard cock pressing into me. “I don’t.”

I smirk down at him. “Putty in my hands.”

His eyelids flutter as he nods weakly. Like putty.

Grasping him by the chin, I force his head to the side so his eyes land on the man tied to the chair on the other side of the room. I lick along the shell of his ear before whispering, “It’s time for our date, baby.”

He shivers. When he moves his arms, he tugs against the ropes around his wrists as though he’s only now realizing he’s tied up. The ropes aren’t too taut. He has quite a bit of slack because I wanted to make sure we’d both be able to have all the fun we want.

“Stone,” he moans as he thrusts up against me again. One of his hands manages to reach the back of my head, his fingers brushing through my hair much more gently than mine did his. “What are you going to do?”

“To him or to you?” I ask, making sure to keep the smirk in my voice.

He squirms beneath me, his cock nudging against mine. “Both.”

I chuckle in his ear. “Do you want me to tell you? Or show you?”

“Show me,” he answers breathlessly.

I grind down on him and nip along his jaw. His warm, panting breaths blow against my hair as I roll my hips over and over and over. When his breaths start coming faster, his grip tightening in my hair, I pull back before he can come. Once he’s far enough away from the edge, I start all over again.

He’s a writhing mess by the time his alternating moans and grumbles are joined by a low groan from across the room.

“Stone,” Callum whimpers.

I raise my head and turn my face to the side, following his gaze to the fuck on the other side of the room who interrupted my fun. He’s not blindfolded, his eyes slowly fluttering open as he groans again.

I guess it’s time for a different kind of fun now.

Callum peeks down where his boxers are barely concealing his erection. He peers back up at me beneath his lashes and grins. “You gonna let him see what’s yours?”

A deep growl vibrates in my chest because…fuck, he knows what that fucking does to me.

Wrapping my hand around his throat, I lean down until my nose is touching his. “Fuck no, I’m not. I don’t give a fuck if he’s going to be dead in two minutes. No one ever gets to see what’s mine.”

His breath hitches, and his cock twitches against my thigh.

After giving him a quick, hard kiss, I climb back off the bed. The man tied to the chair is fully awake now, struggling futilely at his binds. His eyes are wide open, bouncing back and forth between me and Callum.

Can’t have that.

I need Callum naked like right the fuck now, and, dead man or not, this sorry excuse for a human doesn’t get to see any more of him than he already has.

Picking up my knife from on top of the dresser, I cross the room toward the man whose panic I’ll welcomingly soak up. I may not have put a blindfold over his eyes, but I did stick tape over his mouth. I’m not interested in hearing anything he has to say. Muffled pleas and grunts escape him as he watches me approach like a deer in headlights.

When I’m standing in front of him, I grip him harshly by the hair and yank his head back. He blinks up at me with moisture in his eyes and continues with whatever begging or cursing he’s doing behind the tape.

“Hold still. This is going to fucking hurt.”

His eyes open even wider as I lift my knife in the air.

Perfect.

I stab the blade in his left eye first. His scream is stifled by the tape, but the slightly muted sound still pierces through the room. I don’t go too deep, not wanting to kill him quite yet. Only blind him.

Blood drips down the left side of his face as he attempts to thrash his head. I keep a tight hold on him and drive the knife into his right eye next. It’s followed by another muffled scream.

By the time I step back, there’s a waterfall of dark blood cascading down his face, his body wracked with pathetic sobs.

I turn back around and stop at the sight of Callum on the bed. He’s looking at the man I captured all for him, peering at him in all his mutilated glory beneath hooded eyes. When his gaze drifts to me, he takes his bottom lip between his teeth and squirms, begging for my attention.

He’ll fucking get it.

It may be death he craves most, but he hungers for the violence nearly as much. Almost as much as I do.

And, fuck, if that doesn’t make him the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid my eyes on.

We’re two halves of one twisted whole.

We were always made to belong to each other.

“There, baby,” I tell him as I walk back over, tossing the knife on the foot of the bed. “Now he can’t see what’s mine.”

Leaning over, I grab the hem of his boxers and pull them down, slowly so as to tease him. I just love to watch him fucking squirm. And he does, squirming so beautifully with his eyes locked on mine as his dick pops out, hard and throbbing and desperate for touch, and lands on his stomach, a bead of precum already glistening at the tip.

Tossing his boxers away, I crawl back on the mattress between his legs, kissing and nipping my way along his inner thigh. Just to make him squirm a little more. Keeping my gaze on his, I take the base of his hard cock in my hand and lick up the underside of his shaft. He moans and pulls at the ropes, like his body is begging to touch me. But they can’t quite reach that far.

“Did you forget already, Callum?” I ask as I smirk up at him. “You’re at my mercy too.”

I wrap my lips around the head of his cock and suck him down. My tongue glides along his length as his moans and whimpers mix with the broken sobs and tortured groans of my next victim.

It makes the most beautiful music.

Callum is panting and thrusting up into my mouth more wildly, more desperately, the longer I suck his cock. “Stone, please,” he gasps. “Please, wanna come.”

“Sorry, baby,” I say as I let his cock slip from my mouth. “It’s gonna be a long night. Gotta pace yourself.”

He groans and thrusts up again, his dick hitting my chin as he tries to get it back inside my mouth, making me chuckle. “So let me come more than once.”

“Oh, I plan on it.” I kiss the head of his dick. “Think you can go three though?”

A low, long whine rumbles through him as he frowns at me. “Yes.”

I grin. “Liar. You’ll be begging me to stop before I can wrench a third one out of you. But if you want that kind of torture tonight…”

He huffs. “I hate you.”

“We already settled this. Stop lying before your nose grows.” I laugh as he pouts. Then I wipe the frown off his face when I lick up his length again. “How about I give you something else you want?”

“Yes, please,” he says breathlessly.

Climbing off the bed once more, I pick up the knife where I left it. There’s blood on the blade and the sheets, but I’ll worry about that later.

Callum’s eyes remain on me as I bring the knife up and bite down around the handle of the blade to hold it in my mouth so I can unbutton my jeans. Even as I step out of them and my boxers, I find it difficult to look away from him. So instead of turning around, I walk backwards, soaking up the feeling of his eyes on me, like we’re still touching.

Taking the knife in my hand again, I move until I’m standing behind our hostage, my bare feet on plastic sheets. The man’s head hangs as he makes low, pitiful noises. Blood is still dripping down his face, over the tape, and staining the ropes wrapped tightly around his chest.

Grasping onto his hair, I yank his head back again as I stare straight ahead at Callum.

“Where do you want to see his blood come from, baby?” I ask as I slide the sharp edge of the blade across the man’s throat without breaking skin.

The miserable creep whimpers and struggles, but I ignore him. Tonight isn’t about him.

Callum shakes his head, his chest heaving. “I don’t care,” he whispers, just loud enough for me to hear. “I just want to see it.”

“I know you do, baby.”

Dragging the knife down over the man’s chest, I consider stabbing him in the heart. But Callum’s seen me do that plenty of times.

No. I want to give him something worthy of that sketchbook of his.

He still has it. He’s sketched pretty much every kill I’ve made for him, though he doesn’t usually get to right after. We’re usually too preoccupied doing…other things. But I brought it with me this time. I want to give him that too.

I don’t have an artistic eye like Callum does, though he likes to argue that what I do is an art all its own.

So I think about both. My art and his.

And I know exactly what I want to see him draw.

Grasping my hand tight around the handle, I hold it to the side. With my eyes straight ahead on Callum—because his reactions have become my favorite part of my kills—I stab the knife into the side of the man’s neck. Straight through. The blade, painted with blood, is long enough that nearly an inch pokes out from the other side.

Callum’s breath hitches, and his eyes go wide as gurgles and gasps fill the room. He licks his lips, then bites his bottom one as his eyes begin swimming with that familiar calm and peacefulness. His dick is still hard, dripping precum as it twitches against his stomach.

My beautiful, twisted boy.

The man whose hair I’m still gripping convulses in my hold, reminding me he’s even still here. Well, kind of. He’s fading fast.

And Callum is soaking it all up. Drinking it in. Feeling alive. Death transforming him all over again.

If my kills could physically give him life, I’d take some for myself and make us both immortal.

Letting go of the dying man, I make sure his head is tilted back, ruined, bloodied eyes facing the ceiling. I leave the knife embedded straight through his neck as I move around him and unhurriedly back toward the bed. I keep my eyes on Callum, not wanting to miss a moment of the bliss he’s floating in.

As I climb up between his legs once more, his cloudy gaze remains on the man passing into the afterlife. Probably right to hell. I lean over to place soft kisses along the column of Callum’s throat, my cock slotting against his, both of us hard but not chasing any kind of friction. Not yet.

He blinks slowly before turning his face toward mine. A gradual smile lifts the corners of his lips, and his voice comes out breathy and content. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, baby.”

Before my lips can meet his for a kiss, he takes me by surprise.

Catching me off guard, he hooks his legs around mine and thrusts his hips up to knock me off balance. Mid-roll, he wraps both his legs around my left one, pulling it out from under me so that I land on my stomach instead of my back. He crashes on top of me and rolls his hips, his cock slipping through the crease of my ass. The ropes tied around his wrists end up crossed and pressed against my back, another thing holding me down.

“Wanna fuck you, Stone,” he says in my ear, somewhere between a growl and a plea.

I groan and press back against him. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

When he extends his hands on either side of me, the rope at my back pins my chest to the mattress even more. He continues grinding his cock against my ass as he bites down on my shoulder.

He’s not usually this assertive after I kill for him, but I’m fucking here for it.

“Gonna need some help here, killer,” he says before licking over his mark like I often do to him. “I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

“One step ahead of you.”

Reaching behind me, I take hold of the base of the plug in my ass and slowly pull it out. As I drop it on the bed beside us, I feel Callum shiver on top of me.

“Fuck,” he breathes, dropping his forehead between my shoulder blades. “I think you just killed me too.”

“I hope not,” I say with a grin. “Need you to fuck me, baby.”

Digging beneath the pillow next to me, I withdraw the bottle of lube I stashed there. Callum’s warm breaths and moans soak into my skin as I manage to pour some lube into my hand and reach behind again to work it over his cock. Lining his head up with my hole, I start to press back again.

“Don’t be gentle,” I tell him, already breathless with anticipation.

The moment the crown of his dick slips past my rim, he slams his hips forward, ramming into me. I cry out in a way I don’t think I ever have before. It’s all pleasure. Even the slight pain, the burn of the stretch, is pleasure. The way he fills me, the welcome intrusion, is all pure fucking euphoria.

“Fuuuck. Yes. Yes, baby. Fucking use me.”

“Goddammit.” He pulls back and thrusts in again, even more forceful. “Love your fucking filthy mouth. Love your fucking ass. You feel so fucking good.”

“So do you. Fucking love you like this.”

Only after a kill. Any other time, I prefer to pound him into submission.

But right now?

I fucking love that he’s using me.

I love giving him the death he craves and then giving him my body to use as he pleases. All that adrenaline from murdering a man lingers around the edges, but everything else just kind of fades away. If this is even close to how Callum feels when he floats after I kill for him, then I fully get the appeal.

“Yeah, killer? Do you?”

It sounds like a taunt, and I understand it the moment he lifts his hands off the mattress and moves the crossed ropes around my head until they’re under me. At my throat. He pulls one taut as his hand comes down on mine, his fingers tangling with mine. His other hand finds my hair, tugging back until his lips are at my ear.

“You love it when I use you like this?” He continues fucking into me, his pace quickening, his thrusts growing more brutal. “You like being underneath the man you just killed for?”

“Mmm, yes. Fuck yes.”

The rope isn’t tight enough against my throat to cut off my air, but it’s enough to tell me that Callum is the one with the power right now. There’s something about giving up control after just holding the ultimate control in my hands that has me fucking flying.

Giving that up to him is my favorite thing. And the easiest.

Only for him.

Mine.

With that thought, a heat swirls in my lower belly and in the root of my spine.

I want to come. I need to come.

But I can’t. Not yet.

Reaching down with my free hand, I wrap my hand around the base of my dick and squeeze, denying myself the release I so desperately crave.

“Fuck, Stone,” Callum groans into my hair. “My beautiful fucking killer. Gonna fucking come.”

“Do it, baby.” I moan as he drives into me. Harder. Deeper. “Fill me up. I need your cum. Give it to me, please.”

His thrusts slow but turn even more eager. Punishing. Chasing his release. With one last thrust, he finds it. His cock pulses as warm cum floods inside me. As he shivers and pants above me, he places soft, worshipping kisses along my back from one shoulder to the other.

“I love you so much,” he whispers against my skin.

“Love you so much too, baby.”

His dick softens inside me. Untangling the ropes and removing them from around me, he rolls over, his cock slipping out of me. I roll over onto my side, facing him. He’s on his back, eyes closed, a small, sated smile on his face.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” I tell him honestly. “Thank you.”

Turning his head, he looks at me through hooded eyes. “Not bad for someone tied to the headboard, huh?”

I laugh. “Not bad at all.”

When he sees that I’m still rock fucking hard, he frowns. It’s verging on a pout. “That’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh, trust me.” I lift myself up on my elbow to look down at him. “It was very fucking hard not to come.”

“Why?”

I smirk and lean down for a kiss. “Because I’m far from done with you.”

CALLUM

My unhinged psycho of a husband really just killed someone for me with a plug buried in his ass.

Fuck, I’m so fucking in love.

I’ll admit it was damn difficult not to lose myself like I usually do after one of Stone’s kills. To not let myself go floating off to a place where life and death and sex all tend to blur in a kind of iridescent cloud of pleasure and peace.

But, fuck, it was worth it.

The way a man like Stone gives up all his control to me is intoxicating. Watching him kill and then fucking him ruthlessly into the bed?

Worth every fucking second.

But, now…well, I recognize that look in his eyes.

I groan even as my dick gives a rallying twitch. “Can I at least have a minute?”

His smirk is downright predatory. “Not a fucking chance.”

Stone throws a leg over my waist so he’s straddling me, his hard cock pressed against my soft one. He grasps my chin in a harsh grip and turns my head to the side so I’m forced to look at his latest victim.

The man’s lips are parted, mostly dried blood covering his face from his eyes down. Or what’s left of his eyes. Stone’s knife is still stuck straight through his neck, the handle sticking out one side and about an inch sticking out the other. Blood has drenched his shoulders and the front of his shirt.

There’s so much blood I can smell it.

Taste it.

He’s not breathing. Long dead.

I can taste that too.

Stone leans down and nips at my ear before whispering, “I want you to look at him while I play with you. Eyes only on him as I eat your ass. Or I’ll bite. Hard.”

I whimper at the threat, not entirely sure I hate the sound of that.

He lets go of me, his mouth moving down, placing kisses along my jaw and down the column of my throat. I keep my head turned to the side, following his instructions for now.

As he continues moving down, I feel that floaty feeling coming on as I stare at the man he killed for me. At the blood. At the knife. At the stillness. Every single touch—every brush of his lips, every nip of his teeth, every sweep of his tongue—feels heightened. Like little zaps of electricity kissing my skin. By the time he’s settled between my legs, my dick is already half hard.

His mouth skips over my cock, and I don’t think it’s because it was just in his ass. He’s definitely not one to have a problem with that. But he knows I’m sensitive as fuck right now, and he doesn’t want me to fail by making me squirm and beg.

Except that’s exactly what happens the moment he grabs me under the thighs, pushes my legs up close to my chest, and swipes his tongue up the crease of my ass. He swirls it around my rim, and I tug at the ropes tying my wrists to the headboard. I want to touch him. To grab onto his hair and grind against his mouth. But I still manage the latter without the former.

“Fuck, Stone,” I moan, my eyes instinctively closing shut.

His mouth disappears, only to reappear in the form of teeth at my inner thigh. He takes a chunk of flesh between them and bites down, making me cry out. My eyes fly open.

Just like that, my dick is fully hard and ready to go again.

While I’m left panting, Stone says nothing, his tongue brushing over my hole again. He made his point loud and clear without the need for words.

This time, I force my eyes to remain open, even as he pushes his tongue inside me, lighting every one of my nerves on fire. The sight of the fresh kill only stokes the flames, all settling into a comforting warmth that spreads throughout my body.

When Stone’s mouth moves to my balls, licking and sucking, he replaces his tongue with his fingers. Two of them, slick with lube, thrust inside me, crooking until he hits that spot that lights me up even hotter. Brighter.

It’s not until he nips at the sensitive flesh of my balls that I realize my eyes closed again.

I yelp, and the noise dissolves into an undignified moan when I buck my hips and Stone’s fingers slide in deeper. “You’re not playing fair.”

“You’re the one who closed his eyes when my mouth was at his balls.” I can hear the grin in his voice as I resist the urge to peer down at him. “You’re lucky I didn’t bite as hard as the first time.”

He adds a third finger, and it’s really damn difficult to not let my eyes close again. I don’t mind the bites, but his mouth is at my balls again. I have a feeling the next bite wouldn’t be a light little nip.

“Stone, please,” I moan as he starts fucking me a little faster with his fingers. “Want your cock now.”

I’m not surprised when he withdraws his fingers a second later.

He gives me anything I want.

As he sits up on his knees, I can feel his eyes on me. But I don’t look back. I keep my gaze on…well, I don’t even know what his name was. Not that it matters. Whoever he was, I know he deserves what he got.

“You’re being such a good boy now, aren’t you?” Stone asks as I feel the head of his dick nudge against my hole. “More desperate for my cock than my teeth?”

“Desperate for all of it,” I answer honestly. Breathlessly.

“Then I’ll give you all of it, baby.”

My eyes remain fixed on the dead man on the other side of the room as Stone slowly thrusts forward. I focus on the knife sticking through and out of his neck. The blade buried inside of him. While that’s what I see, I feel Stone burying his cock inside of me. So fucking slowly so that I feel every inch of him.

I wonder if that man could feel every inch of the blade as it was stabbed into his neck.

The thought releases a whimpering moan from my lips.

As Stone bottoms out, my eyes roll into the back of my head. I can’t help it. They close again.

Stone falls on top of me, his teeth immediately finding my throat and biting down. A sob gets caught on the way up, and my dick jerks where it’s trapped between our bodies.

“Careful, Callum,” he whispers against my skin before licking over his mark. “Or my teeth are going to be inside you too.”

I turn my head to peer up at him as he rocks slowly inside me. “You wouldn’t.” A grin creeps onto my face. “You have bite inhibition.”

He arches a brow. “Like a dog?”

“Like my bitch.”

He growls, punctuating it with a sharp thrust of his hips as he grips my chin and forces my head to the side again. His teeth once more find the same spot on the side of my throat. He bites down harder than before. The sudden, sharp sting brings tears to my eyes. Even through the pain, my stomach flips upside down with a rush of pleasure.

Any time Stone unleashes that beast inside him, it’s intoxicating. Powerful.

Because I know even his beast would never hurt me in a way I didn’t want. He’ll protect me even more viciously than Stone does.

I’m safe with Stone and with his beast.

He pulls back, and I look at him to see his brows furrowing as he stares at his mark. It hurts, but I don’t feel the warmth or wetness of blood. His hips are still as his gaze meets mine and his hand wraps possessively around my throat.

“Looks like you’re right. We might both love the sight of blood, but I don’t like seeing yours.”

“How about my cum?” I ask as I wrap my legs around his waist, urging him to move again.

He smirks as he starts rolling his hips. “Now that I love to see. You want to come for me again, baby?”

“Please,” I whimper, thrusting up to grind my cock against him.

With his hand still around my throat, he uses his thumb to tilt my head once more to the side, bringing his mouth down to my ear. “You’re always so fucking beautiful when you come, Callum. But there’s something fucking otherworldly when you do it when your eyes are on death. That’s how I want to see you come. I want you looking at it. I want you to feel my cock inside you, filling you up, while you hit that peak and give me all your pleasure.”

And then he’s fucking me like a man possessed. Possessed by a beast.

Somehow, I manage to keep my eyes open as he ruts into me savagely, kissing and nipping and licking along my jaw. My legs tighten around him. Since there’s some slack in the ropes, I bring one hand up to the back of his head, tangling my fingers in his hair. I leave my other hand beside me on the pillow so I can keep my gaze where Stone wants it.

The scent of sex and death lingers in the air. The sight of blood and violence tunnels my vision, everything else turning a little hazy. The feeling of Stone’s mouth on me, his warm breath, his cock making me so, so full, it all has me floating higher, higher, higher.

We never have boring sex. I don’t think we’re capable of it.

But this?

Death adds another layer. We’re perfectly complete without it, but with it, we’re more. Twisted together in a way that no outside force could ever tear us apart.

“Come with me, baby,” Stone says between panting breaths at my ear. “Give me your cum while I give you mine. I’m desperate for it all too.”

The moment I feel his hips stutter, his cock throbbing inside me, I know I’ll give him what he wants. The base of my spine tingles. My balls draw tight. My hand tightens the grip I have on his hair. There’s a burst of warmth as he fills me and triggers my own orgasm.

Death is all I see.

Stone is all I feel.

I’m floating. Flying. Drowning in bloody, blissful clouds.

Our chests heave together as we fight to catch our breath and my mind slowly returns to my body. I’m not too sad about it. I enjoy the trip while I’m there, but I’m always happy to return to Stone. To see him looking down at me with a smile that appears nearly as peaceful as I feel.

He gives me a soft kiss on the lips before he pulls out of me. I always feel a bit empty when he does, but, right now, I don’t think I could. I’m still so full. He starts kissing down my chest, my stomach, my thighs. Pushing my legs back, he moves his mouth to my hole, his tongue swirling around my sore rim. It’s not teasing or purposeful.

When he rises, his cum drips off his tongue. On his way back up my body, he stops to add my own cum to the mix. His lips return to mine, and we kiss slow. Deep. Sharing the taste of us.

Twisted together.

“I have something for you,” he whispers against my mouth.

“You’ve already given me everything.”

He smiles against my lips. “Almost.”

Climbing off the bed, Stone crosses the room, giving me a view of his ass. And an even better one as he bends down to grab something out of one of our bags. When he returns to the bed, he sits beside me and hands me my old sketchbook.

“You got to see me kill,” he says. “Now I want to see you draw it.”

I look from the book to the dead man to Stone. There’s a glimmer behind the forest and the fog of his eyes.

I haven’t had the chance to draw death from direct observation since my stepdad. To be able to sketch the scene with it in front of me. It wasn’t a piece of all of this I thought I needed. I always needed Stone and what he gave me afterward more. But, now, holding the book in my hand and having that opportunity, it’s like one last sliver I didn’t even know I was missing slots into place.

“Thank you,” I tell him, the words nearly getting trapped in my throat. I peer down at the sketchbook again, and when I see the ropes still around my wrists, I frown. “Does this mean you’re going to untie me?”

“Nope.” He smirks as he tugs on one of the ropes, making sure it’s still secure. “Told you I was going to keep you bound to the bed for two whole days. I plan on keeping my word. You’ll have to figure out how to do it with the ropes. I can give you a little extra slack, but I’m not letting you go.”

Something in my chest uncoils with relief.

I wasn’t ready for him to let me go.

I know I’ll never be.

As I set the book aside and push myself up, Stone stands and helps by moving the pillow so it’s behind my back as I lean against it and the headboard. Pulling up my knees, I pick the sketchbook back up and prop it against my legs. There’s just enough rope that I can reach it.

Stone hands me one of my charcoal pencils. “I’m going to go heat up some water for the sponge bath I owe you.”

“I believe you promised you’d make love to me all night too,” I say with a grin.

“And I plan on keeping my word about that as well.” He leans down, placing his hand on the side of my face, his thumb under my chin to lift my mouth to his so he can kiss it. It’s another slow, deep one. When he pulls away, it lingers. “I’ll be right back.”

I watch him go, insatiable for the sight of his bare body.

Once he’s left the room, I open my sketchbook to one of the few blank pages remaining. I touch the tip of the pencil to the paper and peer over at Stone’s latest victim.

He created such a captivating scene for me to draw.

All that blood. The ruined eyes. The knife through his neck.

It’s going to be beautiful.

Maybe a masterpiece.

I guess I never really saved my soul after all.

But who needs a soul when I have Stone?