Enigma

by RuNyx

“You could bring gods to their knees, you know that?” he murmured softly, his hands tightening on her hips, before drifting to the corners of her eyes, tracing them like he did. “Just one glance from these eyes would have driven men to murder in old times. Still might.” Salem tilted her head to the side. “Would it drive you to murder?” He pulled her closer. “Oh, little asp. It would drive me beyond.” “What is beyond murder?” “Damnation.”

Touching anchored him.

He took another deep breath in. “I haven’t slept in a bed in over a year, Salem.”

“Killing you isn’t in the cards.” “Then what is?” “Possessing you,” he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth. “For now.” “And later?” She saw his face shutter, ignoring the slight pang her chest gave in response. “Later cannot be in any of our promises, Salem,”

“Then why are you here?” she murmured, her heart beginning to pound as she waited for his answer. He considered her, his eyes roving over her face. “Because I was a man on the path to damnation and I saw salvation instead. Because being near you makes me feel something beyond rage. Because the chaos inside me quietens when I’m near you.” His words were shaking by the end of his sentence, his hands holding her possessively. “You’ve become my muse, little asp.”

the only male on the board. Caz stilled. Took a step back. Took another.

Is it like his brother or something?

Salem sat on the bed, watching the door he had walked out of, wondering if he had just become another one of the people in her life to abandon her.

Baron leaned against the wall as Caz took a quick shower and cleaned off, uncaring of the other man. His dick was bigger anyway.

Caz had kept an eye on Aditi as well after her proximity to Salem increased, and, lo and behold, found Baron sneaking off with her. Caz knew the guy well enough to know that was only happening as long as the girl was serving her purpose for him. The day she was done, he would discard her.

People were wrong, they didn’t know her, not like he did.

She had started it all for her dead sister. He had started it all for his missing brother. Or rather, a brother he had suspected had died but hadn’t known for sure, not until two nights ago.

Ah, i was right

That was what he had come to Mortimer to find, answers. And that night in her room, he had found them. The photo of his brother after his autopsy. The injuries listed in his report. The strange tattoo behind his ear that Salem had made a note of. Unidentified male. His brother. Lassiter. Laz. Caz and Laz, the two peas in a pod, the two sides of a coin, the two brothers for life.

His eyes drank her in, missing her, the fact that he hadn’t seen her in two days and that felt like an eternity, especially when he used to see her daily.

They were his. Her smiles. Her laughter. Her tears. Her noises. Everything.

She was his, and it was time the world knew that.

But as he moved his mouth over hers, devouring her for everyone to see, he sent a very clear message to everyone watching, knowing they would be watching. She was off-limits again. She was his. And coming for her would make them all understand why they’d called him Death in prison.

Prison?? SIR

So Caz disappearing on her, while devasting, hadn’t destroyed her. Or even surprised her, if she was being honest. And she didn’t blame him.

That was the main reason why they’d never have worked out anyway—not lack of chemistry or sexual tension or unattractiveness, or even trust which would’ve come organically eventually. It was communication—he didn’t talk to her and she didn’t know how to talk to anyone. They were doomed. Best lay it to rest.

The pencil inched toward her open notebook, scribbling something in a slanted scrawl. I want to taste you again. Was the man insane?

He scribbled something again. She flicked her gaze to it. Tell me you don’t want me. Salem picked up her pen and wrote, in clear bold. Fuck off. Then she underlined it for good measure, her gaze flickering to him for a split second.

He wrote something again. Your nipples are hard. Fuck, I love your tits. Did you wear the white for me?

Though she wondered semi-deliriously in her terrible state if she could work out a deal with him just so she could sleep. Or maybe, she could just take her pills. She really didn’t want to, though.

She wanted to taste it, to taste him, just as he’d tasted her. She wanted to lick him, take him, swallow him whole. She wanted to go down on her knees and have him grab her hair the way he was obsessed with doing, and she wanted him to take what he wanted, holding her immobile and making her take him, the idea making her gush even more around her fingers.

And right in the middle of a shudder, he thrust inside her.

“Such a good girl, taking me so good.”

“Come inside me,” she said against his mouth. “Come inside me, Caz.”

She could admit, after her multiple orgasms, that what she felt for him would probably never go away.

“I’m too heavy,” she whispered, not wanting to break the silence but aware that her whole weight was on him. She didn’t want him to die, not yet. “You’re perfect,” he murmured into her hair in an equally low voice.

She wished she’d known his brother, if even for a day. He might’ve given her a glimpse of that love, shown her through his love for Caz how true it could be, being loved by an older sibling. She wished Olivia had loved her like that.

She made a decision. “On one condition.” He raised his eyebrows in silent inquiry. “You’re moving in with me tomorrow,” she stated. “You’ll sleep in a bed every night till you die, no matter what happens between us. I promise.”

“And you’ll be in that bed with me every night till I die. I promise.” Salem really, really wanted to hold him to that. But right then, she just held him and breathed.

She looked down at the text, shaking her head at the way he’d saved his number. Love of my life:

Bane of my existence: Fine. When will you be home?

Bane of my existence: Take care of my pussy.

“Chin up, baby,” he whispered into her ear,

“I was in prison for a year.”

Salem looked down at the object in her hand, confused, until she recognized the cracked screen. Her phone. Her old phone that she’d broken on the ground. Her broken phone that she’d given to a stranger boy one night eight years ago. Her lost phone that had never been returned again.

She knew it was stupid and selfish, but she wanted one person in her life to know her first, see her first, want her first.

her body confused between the signals of fight, flight, or fuck,

“I want to be the only villain you see. I want to be the only devil who drags you to hell.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered. He was. “About you?” He pressed a kiss to her neck. “Utterly.” Kiss. “Absolutely.” Kiss. “Shamelessly.”

“Because life with you feels greater than death. Because you make the artist in me burn with the need to create, make the man in me burn with the need to possess, make the killer in me burn with the need to protect. You make me want to live, Salem. You give me a modicum of peace in a world of chaos. Is that reason enough?”

She just nodded, her lips quivering with the need to say words she couldn’t find,

To that girl, his words weren’t reason enough. They were everything.

I had never believed the gossip, not until I heard the sounds and saw the shadow moving in the window, lit by the light of the moon, a cloaked figure with the face of the dead, gone in a blink.

Salem, I don’t know if you will ever see this but I know you’re the only one smart enough to figure this out. Things have gone beyond my control. I have done things I never should have. They made me do it. But it’s too late now.

Salem hadn’t believed she was worthy of being loved, she still didn’t deep down, but now, at least she knew she was wanted, by her friends, by her lover, by herself.

What if he got space and realized he didn’t want her? What if she got space and her walls got too high? What if he didn’t want to crack them again? Or the worst, what if he forgot about her?

He was wearing a skull mask of some kind. Without a word, he put a piece of paper in her hand and left her alone on the dance floor. She frowned, trying to control her breathing, and opened the paper. You’re next, goldengirl01. What the hell?

He was mad at her? Whatever for? He pulled his hand back, landing a punch right on the man’s nose, a spray of blood gushing out on impact. The guy screamed as people gasped. Then Caz took out the pencil that was always on him, and put it right on the guy’s jugular.

I thought that said IN his jugular