Obsession

by Harleigh Beck

“He’s a killer. Don’t fall for his charms. This is how the other women got lured to their deaths.”

I slowly rise to my feet and smooth down my pants while the guard puts Robbie’s shackles back on. They rustle loudly in the quiet, and I’m reminded once again that the man in question, who’s commandeered every beat of my heart for the last hour so effortlessly, is a condemned killer. Under different circumstances, he wouldn’t hesitate to wrap his long fingers around my throat and squeeze.

“He’s just a man,” I whisper. But I know he’s not. Robbie is the closest I’ve been to tasting the sweetness of death. I was so close to freedom I could feel its soothing caress wrap itself around my fragile heart.

His eyes burn into me. I glance down at his white knuckles, imagining my throat clasped in that brutal death grip.

“You’ve been drowning from the moment you set foot in here. I may be the one headed for the needle, but you’re already dead.”

“Did he touch you at all?”

If you lived in the shadows long enough, you soon called them your home.

He’s a murderer. He’d kill me if he could. Fuck, why does that thought make my core heat? I need psychological help.

“Rule number one: Don’t ever fall for the sob story.”

Robbie Hammond isn’t the biggest wolf I’ve met. My heart broke long ago. Maybe for once, I want to lose myself in a nightmare of my own making, no matter how crazy it seems.”

Rule number three, Savannah: Never turn your back on a killer.

“My story belongs to you, Savannah. My confession is yours and yours alone.”

“Listen to me carefully, Savannah. You’re going to turn Elliot down, unless you want the sniffing dog to die a slow, painful death.”

“Rule number four: Trust your gut.”

I’m not hungry. I’m fucking ravenous. The blood in my veins craves her presence. I need to touch her and hurt her and make her mine.

“No one gets to touch you, Savannah. No one gets to so much as imagine you naked and needy.” “You can’t slaughter everyone who fantasizes about me.” “Watch me.”

“I’ll tell you what I would do. I would remove his fingers one by one, and when he’s about to pass out, I’d cut out his tongue and send it to you in a nice little gift box.”

Rule number six: Don’t think you’re safe because you know the person in front of you. Familiarity doesn’t equal security.

“I do trust you, Hammond. See, that’s the thing: I trust you more than I’d like to admit, even to myself. Don’t mistake familiarity for security. That’s what you told me, right?” I’m on a roll, the words ripping from my lips in a stream of hurt and anger. “We’re way past that. I trust you so much that I’d let you approach me on a darkened road. I am that nice girl who would agree to help you carry whatever shit you need to the car because you pretend you’re injured. Remember that time when you approached a girl with a cane, pretending you were blind and fucking lost? Yeah, I would have helped you too. I. Trust. You.”

“Here’s the thing. I am a monster, Needham. If I see something I want, I steal it. So you can hold that little boy’s hand, but he will still go after what he wants. And I want this woman. I want her so badly, every nerve ending in my body vibrates. She’s inside my veins, Needham.”

I dig my finger into my temple. “She’s in here, driving me fucking crazy. There’s nothing I won’t do. No lengths I won’t go… I will make her mine.”

He shoves my skirt up to my waist and growls low in his throat. So…I didn’t put on panties this morning. “Fuck me,” he whispers, wrenching my quivering thighs apart and staring at my pussy. “You’re going to be the death of me…” “You’re the killer here, Robbie. So ruin me.”

“Rule number seven…” His gruff voice whispers over my clit. “Don’t ever trust a condemned killer.”

“There’s no God within these walls, Savannah. It’s just me, eating your soaking little pussy.” He blows on my glistening slit, his mouth and chin wet with my desire, his eyes heavy with lust. “And let me tell you, it’s the best meal I’ve ever fucking had.”

“Come for me, Savannah. Be a good girl and give me that orgasm.”

“If you let him touch you, I won’t be held responsible for what happens next. I already have a death sentence hanging over my head, and they can’t kill me twice.”

“Touch him, and he dies. The choice is yours. Unless”—a breathy chuckle whispers across my lips—“you want me to kill him. Trust me, baby. It’ll be my pleasure.”

“You have a choice, ma’am. I’ll gladly burn the world down for you. And I will, without a second’s hesitation. Now, the question is, do you want to burn it to the ground?”

I keep my eyes on his skinny neck, imagining the satisfying crack it’ll make if Savannah lets go of my leash.

Before I kill him, I’m going to sever those fingers. That’s for fucking sure. Does he think he can touch my woman without consequences?

“You want to breathe, Savannah? You want to survive me? Then come. You’ll either strangle my dick with your cunt or die. I’m not allowing you another single breath until you come all over my cock, like my own perfect little slut.”

Sucking dick and planning a murder is tiring work.

“I’m yours.” “I will avenge you, baby. Just hold on a little bit longer.”

“Is this what death feels like?” I ask Robbie, who silences me with another kiss. “I’ll bring you back from the dead again, I promise.”

“Did you think you could touch my girl without consequences? That I wouldn’t come for you? Are you really that naive to think handcuffs and chains will stop me from killing you?”

“I’m already a dead man walking. You’re this scared now because, unlike me, you’re not used to living beneath death’s watchful eye. You think I’m scared of death, Miller? I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. But I will kill everyone who’s ever laid a fucking finger on my girl before I let anyone pump my veins full of poison. We’re all going to die sooner or later, Miller. Your day of reckoning just happens to come sooner than mine.”

I’ll kill for you, baby. I’ll make him suffer.

He touched what’s mine.

“Rule number eight: Never run from a predator. Don’t throw fleeting glances behind you.”

“The game changed with you, Savannah. You make me want to chase you to the ends of the earth if it lets me taste your fear in the air. It calls to me like a desperate prayer for absolution late at night.”

Robbie is a dangerous drug slithering through my veins, and I crave the rush of fear and the complete insanity of having the attention of a notorious serial killer solely on me. No man has ever made me feel this alive and reckless.

“Don’t ever speak another man’s name when I’m inside you. Not unless you want me to unleash something truly fucking dark.”

“You want me to fuck you like a whore on a snowy, public footpath in the middle of the night? Is that what you want?”

“No one can keep me from you, Savannah. Not now that I’ve had a taste.”

“You shouldn’t have come looking for the monster.” “Oh, fuck,” I choke, tensing every muscle in my body. “I might just eat you alive.” He shoves two fingers inside me and whispers, “Leave you to bleed out in the snow after you’re done drenching my fingers and cock like a greedy whore.”

Rule number nine: Keep your windows and doors locked. Don’t make me punish you.

“You make me reckless, Savannah. You make me want to break all the fucking rules just so I can taste you again. If that makes me an animal, then so be it.”

“Mark Archer is one less monster from your past for you to worry about. Trust me, I won’t rest until I’ve hunted them all down. Only then will I allow myself a taste of these sweet lips again.”

“I can’t promise I won’t do the same to you, but I can promise to slay every fucking dragon from your past and bring their heads to you on a silver platter. I’m a monster, Savannah. So, let me do what I was born to do. Let me love you the only way I know how.”

Savannah brings me to my damn knees. I never knew the type of fear she brings out in me. The fear of hurting her, or even worse, seeing disappointment cloud her beautiful eyes. That’s all I’ve ever been—a disappointment.