Twelve of Roses

I didn’t want to scare him off.

I would force myself to go along with whatever this was. More than anything, though, I wanted to be told I was a good girl while he choked the life from my body.

What I needed him to do was lie like Con would. To punish me for being rotten to the core. I wasn’t a good girl—not even a little bit.

Chapter Six

Present

How could she let a stranger touch what was mine? Let them fuck her like a cheap whore in a parking lot? Her body belonged to me. I’d marked her so she would never forget that.

It didn’t really matter, I suppose. She was nothing without me. I took pride in that. No one could ever truly satisfy her besides me. He couldn’t fuck her as good as I did.

What had just happened was proof enough of that. The soft moans pouring from her mouth should have been unintelligible screams. She should have begged for it to end while simultaneously spreading her legs, eager for more. Maxwell needed to grab her hair like he wanted to detach it from her skull.

His hands should have wrapped around her fucking throat until it was bruised.

If I shut my eyes, I could allow myself to feel her again. Pulling my dick out of my jeans, I grabbed the base of it and began to stroke up and down, picturing her bent over her car. She was tight, just like I remembered—like I knew she would be after all these years.

I pumped up and down, hearing her breathy little moans in my head growing louder and louder, until I was coming like a schoolboy in the front seat of my truck. I stared down at my flaccid cock with a frown.

Pulling open the glove box, I cleaned myself up with a pair of her pink underwear, picturing all the beautiful ways I was going to punish her this time.

Part of me wanted to snap her goddamn neck—like I had Rose number four.

Another part of me wanted to gut her like a fucking pig and listen to her scream as her insides fell onto the floor.

That’s what I did to Rose number seven.

I would do none of those things, naturally. I was just venting right now. Who wouldn’t? I’d waited on her for years, and this was how she wanted our reunion to be?

She was my number twelve.

I needed her like the world needed the sun.

I was going to have to remind her why I was perfect for her. Get her to remember why it was she needed me, too.

Then, I’d make her beg for my forgiveness.

My girl being with someone else felt like there was a chainsaw running inside me, tearing me apart from the inside out, brutalizing what was left of the heart that only beat for her.

She was gone now, taking the long drive home. Usually, I camped outside her house or chilled in a spare bedroom. She was never any the wiser after all this time. Tonight had changed things. Now I had to get her attention. She needed to know she wasn’t free of me.

I hopped out of my truck and made my way across the parking lot.

I walked back into the shitty bar, surveying the room for options, and my eyes landed on a woman in the back corner.

She was already intoxicated, which made my job ten times easier. When her green eyes met mine, she stared for a second before a shy smile spread across her face. This was going to be easier than I thought.

Pushing the rim of my ball cap down, I gave Aimee a quick grin and slid into a booth. I wasn’t going to approach the woman; she would approach me. Without me having to ask, Aimee brought me a beer, then quickly scuttled off.

It was all a waiting game after that. Kinda reminded me of the good old days. Rose would lure people in by making them think they were going to score. She’d take them to our special place and allow them to get oh so close before I came in.

We had a lot of fun together.

The look of surprise, anger, and fear that played out on someone’s face when they realized they had been set up was priceless. But the real fun began after that.

Psychological torture was a beautiful fucking thing. The sex after the kills…that was incomparable. Even if I sometimes had to forcibly take it.

I knew she missed it, that sometimes she couldn’t help waking up desperate to indulge her darker desires. It was all because of me. I made her a junkie for all things depraved. I created the beautiful monster hidden away beneath her sunny façade.

I remembered the first night she sought me out like it was yesterday. It all began with a dare, and from then on, we were intertwined as one.