Primal Pursuit

Weirdest thing of all, she could have fucked me over by talking. But she didn’t. Instead, the story in the papers was she got home to find her parents dead long after the killer left.

So now I’m genuinely intrigued. The little girl is my rabbit. Poppy, not Penelope. Moore, not Parish.

Twenty minutes later, I watch her walk out of thebuilding, clutching her coat tight and keeping her head down. I’m sure she poked about but didn’t actively search for anything upstairs. She’s a smart rabbit. She knows I wouldn’t have left her alone if she could find a single thing on me in there.

She gets into her car and drives off, and I just sit there in the dark, my thoughts racing.

She went to Myth to find me.

Look the killer in the eyes.

Dance with the fucking devil.

And she came all over my cock when she couldn’t kill me. Now I’m convinced she knows who I am. Or suspects.

This isn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

Not by any fucking shot at all.

Chapter

Seven

POPPY

It tookme the entire drive home to stop my body from trembling. I thought I was being followed, yet every time I glanced in the rearview mirror of my clunky car, there was no one—following, that is.

I’m exhausted when I get to my third-floor apartment, and it’s almost four a.m., according to the microwave clock. I dump my bag and grab the whiskey bottle left over from I don’t know when. It’s cheap, nasty, and it suits my needs.

I pour some into a chipped red flower cup and gulp it down. Then I slam back some more, letting the fire heat me from the inside out.

I kick off my shoes and plop down on the old and stained couch, drinking the whiskey and trying to make sense of the mess in my head. I should shower, but I don’t. Not yet. Instead, I breathe in, drawing the heady scent that’s on me into my lungs.

It’s Davian, cum, and sex. It’s one giant clusterfuck.

I grip the mug. It’s safe to say tonight didn’t go according to plan. At all.

Tension rings through me, like chains binding around my legs, weighing me down until I can’t even think straight. The part where I tried and failed to kill him slams against the insides of my skull and repeats like a broken record player. A wave of embarrassment crashes over me at the memory. My cheeks burn with heat and shame, but it’s nothing compared to how I feel knowing that Iwantedto have sex with him. And did.

How could I do that? He’s hot, he’s pure, unadulterated, animalistic sex, but that doesn’t change the fact that I despise him for what he did to my life. At least it’s not supposed to.

Tossing back the rest of the whiskey, I turn on the speaker pod and play old Nick Cave through it. Then I strip off the coat and take a long, hot shower to try to wash away the night and its epic failure.

When I’m done, the music is still going, all about betrayal and hate and ugly sins to do with lust. It seems appropriate, and the words mock me.

After slipping on a pair of panties and a tank top, I sit in the middle of the bed in the light of the lamp and pour another drink. Just like every other night, Davian owns my thoughts, but tonight the images of blood draining from his lifeless body are absent. Instead, all I see are flashes of his face while he’s inside me, the way his expression hardens with insatiable desire, his eyes dark with a lust that mirrors my own. I can still feel him inside me, his weight between my legs, pushing me toward a kind of pleasure that tears me apart and puts me back together all at once.

I’ve never felt so…free when it comes to sex before.

God, it’s unbelievable. The anger I feel toward him is still there, but it’s blunted and softened, and I fucking hate it.

Why is this horrible, murdering motherfucker with a vicious hard-edged charm in my blood? I don’t want Davian there, not like this. Tonight, I was given the opportunity to kill him, and instead I came. On him. His cock stretching me, filling me, and even after multiple orgasms, I still wanted more.

What is wrong with me?

I can’t even pretend I wanted to wait until he gave me details of who hired him. I didn’t ask. And sure, I could lie and say I simply couldn’t murder someone, but I have a horrible feeling that I could. I would.